CIPS provided its customers with a diverse array of services, including ice.

In its early years, Central Illinois Public Service Company provided its customers with more than just electricity. It also operated a streetcar service and gas and heat services, sold water wholesale and even ran a retail ice business.

Continuous operation for Central Illinois Public Service Company actually began in 1902 when its predecessor, the Mattoon City Railway, incorporated under Illinois law to provide streetcar service in Mattoon.

In 1904, Central Illinois Public Service Company acquired the electric generating plant and distribution system in Mattoon, and in 1912 became a subsidiary of Middle West Utilities Company, operating an electric light and power business in the Illinois cities of Mattoon, Charleston and Kansas. But that's not all -- Central Illinois Public Service Company also furnished a heating service in Mattoon, operated electric street railways in Mattoon and Charleston and ran an electric interurban railway between the two cities.

In 1912, CIPSCO acquired 60 public service properties, 14 of which became group headquarters. In the years that followed, the company planned and constructed transmission lines connecting towns in the service area into seven different systems, thus replacing the small, inefficient power houses with central station service to customers.

During its first 12 years, the company that started as one streetcar line and one city electric plant quickly expanded into a utility with eight generating stations -- and 11 in reserve -- serving 232 communities.