Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
INTERSTATE POWER COMPANY
INTERSTATE POWER COMPANY. Dubuque-based utility. Interstate celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 18, 1975. The company began as early as 1913 when a group of Chicago financiers began consolidating small utility companies as part of the Utilities Development Corporation. In 1924 the corporation acquired the DUBUQUE ELECTRIC COMPANY, then the sole remaining provider of electricity to Dubuque with subsidiaries supplying power to East Dubuque and Dyersville.
In 1925 the Chicago financiers incorporated their utility as the Interstate Power Company. The home office was located in the former offices of Dubuque Electric at 10th and Main. A period of rapid growth for the company resulted in the company spreading farther into Iowa and parts of Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and the province of Manitoba, Canada.
The stock market crash of the Great Depression brought the company's good fortune temporarily to an end. Thirteen years and three company reorganizations would be needed to restore Interstate Power's financial stability. As part of reorganization, fringe operations were sold including the Dubuque bus system that Interstate had created from the trolley system in 1933. In 1936 when Interstate's bus fleet operated seven days a week, Dubuque residents could have a day's worth of sightseeing for twenty-five cents.
In 2008 Interstate Power was part of ALLIANT ENERGY CORPORATION. Alliant was a public utility holding company incorporated in Madison, Wisconsin in 1991.
The 1942 Dubuque Classified Business Directory through 1983 Dubuque City Directory listed the company at 1000 Main.
The 1985 Dubuque City Directory listed 1000 Main.
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Source:
Bergstrom, Kathy, "Interstate Traces Roots to Dubuque," Telegraph Herald, Nov. 12, 1995, p. 2
See: CINDERELLA