The Beloit Gas Light & Coke Company was chartered by act of the state legislature.

The evidence

• “Few of the original enterprises paid anything to speak of, if there were any dividends at all, and this was the experience of the Beloit Gas Light & Coke Company. It was founded by a number of Philadelphia men and established on a charter granted them by an act of the state legislature February 13, 1855. The plant was not constructed till 1859, however, and was then put in by a company capitalized at $42,000.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/29-beloit-manufacturing.md, Vol. 2, PDF p. 121 / book p. 631

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources