Centel Corporation was an American telecommunications company, with primary interests in providing basic telephone service, cellular phone service and cable television service.
Early history
In 1900, Max McGraw took his savings from his newspaper route to start an electrical repair and supply shop, the McGraw Electric Company, in Sioux City, Iowa. Over the years, McGraw's company grew from residential wiring installation to include industrial wiring, electrical supply wholesaling, and electronics manufacturing. In 1922, McGraw entered the telecommunications business with the purchase of Central Telephone and Electric Company of St. Louis, Missouri. McGraw's businesses grew rapidly, and in 1926 more than 20 separate electric and telephone companies were consolidated as Central WestPublic Service Company. Through a series of mergers, acquisitions, purchases, sales, and re-purchases, the electrical supply and manufacturing side of the business would form the nucleus of McGraw-Edison. Through similar processes, the telecommunications side would become Centel, which became the name of the company in 1982.
Centel
Centel provided telephone service through its Central Telephone Company subsidiary. Its largest coverage areas by lines installed were Las Vegas, Chicago suburbs, Tallahassee, FL and Charlottesville, VA. It was, until the breakup of AT&T in 1984, the fifth largest telephone company in the United States after AT&T, GTE, United Telecom and Contel. Centel had consolidated revenues of $1.2 billion in 1991. Centel was purchased by Sprint in 1993 for approximately $3 billion in Sprint common stock. Centel's stock was trading at $42.50 per share on the New York Stock Exchange just before the merger announcement in May 1992, but the cash value of the deal worked out to be only $33.50 per share of Centel stock. After a bitter battle with dissident shareholders who believed the company was worth more, the merger was ultimately approved by a very narrow majority, with 50.5% of the outstanding shares voting for the merger. At the time of its 1993 purchase by Sprint, Centel provided local telephone service to 1.5 million telephone lines in seven states and was also the 10th largest cellular company with operations in 22 states. It had 9,300 employees. It had previously sold its Cable Operations in 1989 and its Electric operations in 1991. Ironically, Sprint didn't end up keeping either of Centel's businesses that it acquired. The cellular operations were spun off in 1996 so Sprint could instead focus on providing Sprint PCS cellular service. The local telephone operations were spun off in 2006.
Former subsidiaries
Remaining network and assets are operated and maintained by Centurylink.
Centel Cellular Company: In 1993, Centel Cellular Company changed its name to Sprint Cellular Company when Sprint acquired Centel. It was subsequently spun off as 360 Communications Company in 1996. Alltel acquired 360 Communications Company in 1998 for $4.1 billion. Verizon Wireless acquired Alltel in 2008.
Centel Electric: In 1991, Centel sold its electric utility holdings in Kansas and Colorado to UtiliCorp for $345 million. In 2006, Aquila sold the Kansas electric properties to Mid-Kansas Electric Company. In 2008, the Colorado electric properties were acquired by Black Hills Corporation.
