History
The origins of the company lie with the grand scheme of magnate Henry E. Huntington and hydraulic engineer John S. Eastwood, developed around 1908, for a vast complex of reservoirs to be constructed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of central California. Huntington founded Pacific Light and Power, one of the roughly two dozen companies he controlled at the time,, to execute what would eventually become one of the largest hydropower systems in the United States, the Big Creek Hydroelectric Project. Pacific Light and Power was one of the predecessor companies to SCE, along with Edison Electric, Mt. Whitney Power & Electric Co., California Electric Power Co., and others.
Southern California Edison has also had the distinction to be a major employer of the Roma (Gypsies) people. When the Roma fled Europe, due to persecution after WWII, many of them arrived in Soutern California and were employed to put up electrical poles around Southern California.
Read more about this topic: Southern California Edison
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