Xcel Energy was built on three companies: Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Company (NSP), Denver-based Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo), and Amarillo-based Southwestern Public Service (SPS). Southwestern Public Service Co. (SPS) dates its origins to 1904 and the Pecos Valley in New Mexico when Maynard Gunsell received an electricity franchise for the city of Roswell, New Mexico and its 2,000 residents. The financial strain of creating this new enterprise soon overwhelmed him and he sold the franchise to W.H. Gillenwater, who named his utility the Roswell Electric Light Co. He later sold the company to an investment firm in Cleveland, Ohio, which already owned the Roswell Gas Co.