The story
Dex One Corporation was originally established as the R.H. Donnelley Company in 1886 by Reuben H. Donnelley, son of RR Donnelley founder Richard R. Donnelley. R.H. Donnelley primarily contracted with The Chicago Telephone Company to publish telephone directories for its Chicago customers. In 1906, the company began contracting with Bell System firms, including New York Telephone, Wisconsin Telephone, and Cincinnati Suburban Telephone Co.
In 1917, The R.H. Donnelley Comp any was incorporated and moved to New York City, retaining some offices in Chicago. Reuben Donnelley died in 1929; while his company endured, continuing its contract with the Bell System to publish telephone directories nationally.
In 1961, R. H. Donnelley was acquired, as a wholly owned subsidiary, by Dun & Bradstreet.
Partnerships
Following its merger with Dun & Bradstreet, the company began a series of partnerships with additional telephone companies to publish directories. Around this time, competition started with other phone companies to provide directories.
From 1980 to 1985, R.H. Donnelley began a partnership with United Telephone (Sprint), called Uni-Don, to publish telephone directories to customers in central Florida.
In 1986, it contracted with NYNEX to become its directory sales agent. The same year, R.H. Donnelley started publishing directories in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in competition with Bell Atlantic, many of which were later sold off to Yellow Book
In 1988, it formed Cen-Don with Centel (now part of CenturyLink) to publish telephone directories in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. Venture One was formed with Southwestern Bell Corporation, which published directories in competition with Bell Atlantic in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
In 1990, when the company and Ameritech renewed their joint venture, Amdon, it was renamed DonTech, and acquired a singular management team. The rebranded partnership continued to publish telephone directories in Illinois and northwest Indiana.
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Aquisitions
On July 1, 1998, Dun & Bradstreet split into two companies, one assumed the Dun & Bradstreet name, while the other adopted the R.H. Donnelley name.
In 2003, R.H. Donnelley acquired Sprint Publishing & Advertising from Sprint Corporation, later rebranded from Sprint Yellow Pages to EMBARQ Yellow Pages.
In 2004, R.H. Donnelley acquired the directory publishing business of SBC Communications in Illinois and northwest Indiana, along with the SBC interest in DonTech. As a result, R.H. Donnelley gained a 50-year licensing agreement to use the SBC Yellow Pages name on all directories published for SBC Illinois customers. Following the AT&T merger, the directories were known as "AT&T Yellow Pages published by R.H. Donnelley".
In 2006, R.H. Donnelley completed its acquisition of Dex Media, which had been spun off from Qwest in 2002-2003. Following the acquisition, R.H. Donnelley became the third-largest directory publisher in the United States.
In January 2007, R.H. Donnelley bought Local Launch Search Marketing. That July, the company acquired Business.com.
From Wikipedia’s article on Dex One, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4