Rural Lines—USA: The Story of Cooperative Rural Electrification

Excerpts from the Preface: This revised edition of Rural Lines—USA is a tribute to the people who helped organize this Nation's rural electric cooperatives. During the thirties they called the first meetings in Georgia: they collected easements in Iowa; they drew system plans on road maps in Ohio. In the forties they launched the area coverage idea in Texas and Montana. Wherever you looked, from Alaska to Florida, from Maine to California, rural communities produced the kind of leaders who could get the job done. Now, just a few years later, nearly 99 percent of our farms and ranches are electrified. There are more than 1,000 REA-financed electric systems with plant worth $7.7 billion. These organizations that began around a kitchen table have grown into an important and successful part of a big industry.