The Wisconsin-based Associated Telephone Utilities Company was founded in 1926; it went bankrupt in 1933 during the Great Depression, and was reorganized as General Telephone in 1934. In 1991, it acquired the third largest independent, Continental Telephone (ConTel). It owned Automatic Electric, a telephone equipment supplier similar in many ways to Western Electric, and Sylvania Lighting, the only non-communications-oriented company under GTE ownership. GTE provided local telephone service to many areas of the U.S. through operating companies, much as American Telephone & Telegraph provided local telephone service through its 22 Bell Operating Companies.