Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Co. - 1957 dated $1000 Utility Bond

$1000 Specimen 4 1/2 First Mortgage Bond. Printed by American Bank Note Company. In the midst of declining demand and increased regulatory restrictions, American Electric Power Company had opened its 2.13 million-kilowatt Cook nuclear plant in Michigan. For a time, the company was sheltered by its sales to other utilities, which could purchase electricity from American Electric Power Company at a cost lower than they could produce it themselves. In 1980, American Electric Power Company acquired Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Company, located in the middle of its operating system, and moved its headquarters to Columbus, then the largest city it served. By 1982, however, a recession severely affecting industry in American Electric Power Company's territories caused a drop in industrial sales of 18 percent. Sales to other utilities declined by 20 percent. In response, White cut salaries, froze wages, and laid off workers.

Recovery, however, came as early as 1984. In that year, increased auto sales led to the recovery of the aluminum and steel industries, which were AEP's largest industrial customers. As industrial sales rose 22 percent in the year's first quarter over the year before, sales to other utilities meeting the increased demand rose 40 percent. Residential and commercial demand rose 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively. For American Electric Power Company, which had been granted a rate increase of $260 million in 1983, the corner had been turned. Although revenues would decline in both 1985 and 1990, American Electric Power Company's financial situation generally improved from its 1983 low. In 1986 a project 19 years in duration, a 2,022-mile-long, 765,000-volt transmission network stretching from Virginia to Michigan, began operation. At a cost of $800 million, American Electric Power Company established an electrical grid expected to serve into the 21st century. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Electric_Power