High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Qwest Corporation is the single Bell Operating Company of Qwest Communications International, Inc. It was formerly named U S WEST Communications, Inc. from 1991 to 2000, and also formerly named The Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Company from 1911 to 1991. It includes the former operations of Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell as well. Recent Harvard graduates Frederick O. Vaille, and Henry R. Walcott, went to Denver and met a saloonkeeper, Sam Morgan and together secured 161 customers, enough to warrant a return to Boston to secure a new telephone franchise from the American Bell Telephone Company.