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:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)