ATLANTA, Jan. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern Company today celebrated its 100-year anniversary with an event at its corporate headquarters in Atlanta and the ringing of The Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange. 

The company was founded on Jan. 5, 1912, under the name Alabama Traction, Light & Power, the first in a succession of holding companies that eventually became Southern Company.

Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Thomas A. Fanning hosted a special Founders Day ceremony in the lobby of the company's headquarters to mark the beginning of a year-long centennial celebration.  All of the company's former living CEOs spoke at the event: Edward L. Addison, A.W. "Bill" Dahlberg, H. Allen Franklin and David M. Ratcliffe.  The company's longest tenured employee, Pete G. Risse, was also honored for his 56 years of service.

"Our founders embodied a unique spirit of vision and innovation, which they used to launch Southern Company's first 100 years," said Fanning. "Now, as we're beginning our second 100 years, that same spirit will continue to fuel our success."

The company was founded by James Mitchell, who saw a holding company as key to his planned development of a network of generating stations that would one day reach across the southeastern U.S. Twelve years after its founding, in 1924, Alabama Traction, Light & Power changed its name to Southeastern Power & Light, which was subsequently taken over in 1929 by a new conglomerate, Commonwealth & Southern (C&S). The final step in the company's evolution took place in 1947, when C&S divested itself of its northern utilities and took the name Southern Company, now 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 book "Big Bets."

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 owns electric utilities in four states and a growing competitive generation company, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. 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