Qwest Corporation

For the holding company created in 1996, seeQwest.

Qwest Corporation

Qwest logo
Trade name	CenturyLink QC and Quantum Fiber QC
Formerly	Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company (1911–1990) U S WEST Communications, Inc. (1991–2000)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Telecommunications
Predecessor	Colorado Telephone Rocky Mountain Bell
Founded	July 17, 1911(1911-07-17)
Headquarters	100 Centurylink Dr, Monroe, LA 71203, USA
Area served	Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
Products	Local Telephone Service,FTTH,DSL,andVOIP
Parent	AT&T(1911–1983) US West(1984–2000) Qwest(2000–2011) Lumen(2011–present)
Subsidiaries	El Paso County Telephone
Website	http://www.qwest.com/

Qwest Corporationis aRegional Bell Operating Companyowned byLumen Technologies.It was formerly namedU S WEST Communications, Inc.from 1991 to 2000, and also formerly namedMountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company,known asMountain Bellfrom 1911 to 1991. It includes the former operations ofMalheur Bell,Northwestern BellandPacific Northwest Bellas well.

History

Mountain Bell

Denver Telephone Dispatch Company - 1879

RecentHarvardgraduates Frederick O. Vaille, and Henry R. Walcott, went to Denver and met a saloonkeeper, Sam Morgan, and together secured 161 customers, enough to warrant a return to Boston to secure a new telephonefranchisefrom the American Bell Telephone Company.

When the franchise was secured, wires were strung, boys were hired as operators, a switchboard was installed and the Denver Telephone Dispatch Company opened for business on February 24, 1879. The Denver exchange was the seventeenth in the nation, opening just nine days after the Minneapolis exchange. Denver'sRocky Mountain Newsreported that "The Telephone Company are adding new subscribers to the system every day."

Building the Colorado Telephone Company - 1881

Soon after the Denver Dispatch Company began operations, theWestern Union-owned Colorado Edison Telephone Company began competitive operations. Western Union also began a phone company inLeadville.

The Edison Company, with its powerful transmitter, was able to offer service to the nearby towns ofGolden,Georgetown,Central City,Colorado Springs,andPueblo.

The competitive battle raged as the Dispatch Company acquired better transmitters and added Golden,Black Hawk,Georgetown and Central City to their calling area. When the American Bell Company won their patent infringement suit with Western Union, the Bell companies absorbed the Western Union companies. In Denver,competitionfor local service would remain absent from the market until 1997.

In 1880, Vaille sold two of his four franchise contracts back to American Bell, who sold them toHorace Taborin Leadville. In January 1881, Vaille joined a group of Denver business leaders to form the Colorado Telephone Company. Denver Dispatch faded into history when Vaille sold his remaining two Bell contracts to the Colorado Telephone Company. Henry Wolcott was the president of Colorado Telephone, while Vaille stayed on as general manager for three years.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Telephone Company began to grow, as "boomer linemen" strung wire to ranches and farm towns in the flat lands, and to mines and mining towns in the mountains, and along Colorado's front range. Colorado Telephone purchased the Leadville company in 1888.

Rocky Mountain Bell - 1883

The Denver Dispatch Company was less than two years old when the Rocky Mountain Telephone Company began inSalt Lake City,Utah, with fewer than 100 subscribers. With the financial backing of American Bell, The Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company replaced Rocky Mountain Telephone in 1883. Rocky Mountain Bell immediately began an aggressive campaign to buy nearly every small telephone company in the region, and their operating territory soon covered nearly all ofUtah,Montana,Idaho,andWyoming.

A combination of overspending, careless management, and the logistical difficulties of covering an extremely large, sparsely populated territory would eventually put Rocky Mountain Bell in financial trouble.

Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph - 1911

These business practices stopped in July 17, 1911 when Colorado Telephone and Tri-State Telephone merged to formThe Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Companywhich purchased the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company on July 20, 1911.Vaille was well aware of Rocky Mountain Bell's problems and he insisted that Colorado Telephone Company managers take over the majority of management positions in the former Rocky Mountain Bell Company territory. Vaille served as a Mountain States director until his death in 1920.

A number of Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph buildings survive and are listed on the U.S.National Register of Historic Places.

Mountain Bell logo

MST&T commonly did business asMountain States Telephoneuntil 1969, when the new Bell System logo came into use and the company began doing business asMountain Bell.The company provided telephone services inColorado,Utah,Arizona,New Mexico,Montana,SouthernIdaho,Wyoming,and theEl Paso, Texas,vicinity. Additionally, MST&T acquired a controlling interest in theMalheur Home Telephone CompanyinOregon,better known asMalheur Bell.MST&T operated Malheur Bell as a wholly owned independent subsidiary, an arrangement that continued until 2009.

Mountain Bell's operations inEl Paso, Texas,were sold toSouthwestern Bellin 1982.

Prior to 1984, AT&T held an 88.6% stake in Mountain Bell.

Usage of the Mountain Bell name has recently been resumed by Unical Enterprises, who began producing telephones under theMountain Bellname in 2006. Additionally, the MountainBell.com domain is still active and redirects to the CenturyLink webpage.

From 1929 to 1984 theMountain Bell headquarterswas located at 931 14th Street inDenver,Colorado. As part of a company-wide real estate savings effort, areas of the building's interior were remodeled in 2009 and 2010, along with the adjoining 930 building, to accommodate employees vacating leased space in the Qwest headquarters building at 1801 California St. In 2023Lumen Technologiesvacated the formerLevel 3 Communicationsheadquarters campus housing senior leadership and C-level exectuives offices in Broomfield, CO and relocated them to the Mountain Bell headquarters building after minor interrior remodeling.

Northwestern Bell

Main article:Northwestern Bell

Northwestern Bell logo, 1969–1983

Northwestern Bell Telephone Companyserved the states just north of theSouthwestern Bellarea, including:Iowa,Minnesota,South Dakota,North Dakota,andNebraska.

Northwestern Bell was formerly the Iowa Telephone Company, which changed its name to Northwestern Bell in 1920. It then absorbed the operations of companies such as the Northwestern Telephone Exchange, the Tri-State Telephone Company, Dakota Central Telephone Company, and the Nebraska Telephone Company.

The Northwestern Bell headquarters was located at 1314 (DOTM) Douglas Street inOmaha, Nebraska.It remained incorporated inIowa,however.

Pacific Northwest Bell

Main article:Pacific Northwest Bell

Pacific Northwest Bell logo, 1969–1983

Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Companyprovided telephone services in the states ofOregon,Washington,and northernIdaho.

Pacific Northwest Bell was created on July 1, 1961, when the Bell telephone operations in northern Idaho, Oregon, and Washington state were split off fromPacific Telephone & Telegraph.

Prior to 1984, AT&T held an 89.3% stake in Pacific Northwest Bell.

Pacific Northwest Bell's headquarters are at 1600 7th Avenue (also known as 1600 Bell Plaza), inSeattle,Washington.

Post-breakup

Main article:US West

In 1984, theBell Systemwas broken into sevenRegional Bell Operating Companies.U S WEST, Inc.became a holding company for Mountain Bell,Northwestern Bell,andPacific Northwest Bell.

U S WEST Communications

U S WEST Communications logo, 1988–2000

In 1988, U S WEST became the firstBaby Bellto have its different Bell Operating Companies carry on business under a single name.U S WEST Communicationsbecame a "d/b/a"name for Mountain Bell as well as Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell; however, the three companies remained legally separate. The three companies also began using the U S WEST Communications logo, which continued to include the Bell logo.

Bell Operating Companies merge

On January 1, 1991, U S WEST merged its three operating companies. As part of the deal, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Bell were folded into Mountain BellMountain States Telephone and Telegraph, the surviving company, changed its name toU S WEST Communications, Inc.on January 2, 1991.

U S WEST Communications was the first local telephone company to offerCaller IDservice in 1991, nearly four years before any other localtelcocould do so. They were the first US telco to upgrade theirPSTNto electronic switching before 1990 and they were the first to offer residential and businessISDNand later,DSLservices to their customers by 1997.

U S WEST, since 1984, had been selling telephone equipment under theNorthwestern Bellname. In 1992, U S WEST granted Unical Enterprises, who had been producing phones under the "La Phone" brand, the right to become the exclusive licensee to produce telephones under the Northwestern Bell name, which are still produced under theBELL Phones by Northwestern Bell Phonesbrand.

Sell-off of rural areas

In 1993,U S WESTbegan selling off unprofitable rural telephone lines throughout its 14-state region.It retained its telephone directory operations in the areas it sold.

In 1993, Pacific Telecom agreed to purchase 45 exchanges inColoradoserving 50,000 customers. The sale closed in 1994 and the lines were added to Eagle Telecommunications. In 1995, it sold several exchanges inFremont County, Idahoto Fremont Telcom (which was acquired byFairPointin the 2000s). The same year, Pacific Telecom acquired more access lines in Oregon and Washington. In 1996 and 1997, several U S WEST Communications exchanges inSouth Dakotawere sold to Golden West Telecommunications. In 1996, Golden West acquired exchanges inWinner,Murdo,Burke,Bonesteel,MarionandReliance;in 1997, it acquired lines inClearfield,Gregory,Lesterville,andWitten.The sale included 8,500 access lines. The lines acquired were then added to Golden West's subsidiary Vivian Telephone Company.

In 1999, U S WEST announced plans to sell 530,000 access lines in largely rural areas to the independent companyCitizens Communicationsfor $1.65 billion.The sale would not have includedU S WEST Dexdirectories in those territories. The transaction remained incomplete before 2000.

Acquisition by Qwest

In 2000,Qwest Communications Internationalacquired U S WEST in ahostile takeover.At the time, U S WEST was trying to acquireGlobal Crossing,and resisted Qwest's takeover. Qwest was a much smaller company in terms of employees and market capitalization when it obtained control of the Regional Bell Operating Company. Because U S WEST's stock was trading at very high prices during thedot-com bubble,Qwest was able to purchase the larger firm, and the Bell Operating Company was renamedQwest Corporation.

In 2001, Qwest, which acquired U S WEST in 2000, terminated the sale of rural telephone lines agreed upon in 1999 because Citizens refused to complete the transaction.

On December 14, 2009, Qwest Corporation absorbed the operations of its long-time subsidiaryMalheur Bell.

Acquisition by CenturyLink

On April 1, 2011, CenturyLink completed its acquisition ofQwest.At that point, Qwest Corporation became a subsidiary of CenturyLink and began doing business asCenturyLink QCeffective August 8, 2011. The merger represents a reunion of exchanges acquired byPacific Telecomin the 1990s that had been separated from U S WEST Communications.

Since acquisition by CenturyLink, Qwest Corporation has issued bonds traded on theNew York Stock Exchangeunder the CTQ and CTW tickers.

Qwest Corporation is one of two of the originalBell Operating Companiesto be owned by a company not founded in 1983 as aBaby Bell.The other isFrontier West Virginia.

Headquarters

CenturyLink QC is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana. It maintains offices in major cities throughout the United States.

See also

• Northwestern Bell
• Pacific Northwest Bell

External links

• CenturyLink home page
• Qwest home page
• FCC Info: Qwest Corporation
• Malheur Bell history