Finance History|11 Wall Street — The Gas Light Share That Outlasted Every Other Listing

People treat Consolidated Edison as a modern New York utility parent that always printed ED.

The line on this tape is older than almost every other name still on the board.

The 46th New York State Legislature incorporated the New York Gas Light Company on 23 March 1823. On 12 May 1823 the city granted it the exclusive privilege to lay gas pipes south of Grand Street.

The New York Stock Exchange's own firsts page later recorded that company as listed in 1824, and named Con Edison the longest continuously listed stock on the Exchange.

A 2003 company release marking 180 years of service repeated the 1823 charter and the long association with the Exchange.

Six gas concerns combined in 1884 as Consolidated Gas Company of New York. Electric properties were folded in over the next half-century. In 1936 the name became Consolidated Edison Company of New York.

On 1 January 1998, after New York deregulated generation, a holding company named Consolidated Edison, Inc. was formed above the utility. The ticker stayed ED.

The mechanism is corporate succession on a single listed line. The 1824 gas share did not survive as a certificate. The Exchange treats the successor common as the same listing.

Holders today own wires, pipes, and steam in the city, not a coal-gas franchise south of Canal Street.

The pin is the Broad Street facade of the Exchange, where the successor line still prints. Interior trading is not visitable from the sidewalk.

Photo: Arild Vagen, August 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. New York Stock Exchange from Broad Street.