History
The company was founded in 1884 by Peter Kiewit, a bricklayer of Dutch descent. The founder's son, also named Peter Kiewit, headed the firm from 1924 until his death in 1979. During his life it became one of the largest construction companies in the world. He was also very active in the Omaha area. In 1963, he bought the Omaha World-Herald to keep it locally owned. Under the terms of his will, the employees bought the paper in 1979. Walter Scott, Jr., was first elected to the Peter Kiewit Sons' Incorporated board in 1964. In 1979, he was elected president. When Peter Kiewit died later that same year, Scott was selected to succeed him as chairman. Starting in 1985, Peter Kiewit also constructed a nation-wide fiber optic network that it later spun off as Level 3 Communications.
Read more about this topic: Kiewit Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)