ATLANTA, Jan. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of Southern Company's 100th anniversary, Chief Financial Officer Art P. Beattie will ring The Opening Bell Thursday, Jan. 5, at the New York Stock Exchange.

A live webcast of The Opening Bell can be viewed at 9:29 a.m. EST. An archive will be available shortly after the event.

First called Alabama Traction, Light and Power, the company was founded by James Mitchell on Jan. 5, 1912, who saw a holding company as key to a planned development of a network of electric generating stations that would one day reach across the southeastern U.S.

In the years that followed, that first holding company evolved into today's Southern Company, the largest generator of electricity in the U.S. and among the largest in the world.  The company's complete history was outlined in detail in the recently published "Big Bets," which is available on Amazon.com.

The Opening Bell signals the beginning of trading each business day on the NYSE.  Bells were introduced in the 1870s when continuous trading was instituted. Originally, a gong was used, but bells have been used since the NYSE moved to its current location in 1903.  There is one large bell in each of the NYSE's four trading areas that are operated synchronously from a single control.  In 1995, the NYSE began having special guests ring the bells on a regular basis.

With 4.4 million customers and more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is the premier energy company serving the Southeast. A leading U.S. producer of electricity, Southern Company is the parent firm of electric utilities in four states and a growing competitive generation company, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications companies. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are below the national average. Southern Company was named the World's Most Admired Electric and Gas Utility by Fortune magazine in 2011, and is consistently listed among the top U.S. electric service providers in customer satisfaction by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Visit our website at www.southerncompany.com.

SOURCE Southern Company