KIUC Linemen All Geared Up - Kauai Island Utility Cooperative

32 KIUC CURRENTS
Most of the loan recipients were newly formed
rural electric cooperatives.
If rural America was to have access to electricity,
rural residents discovered they would have to
make it happen themselves.
Today, nearly a thousand locally owned co­ops
provide power to more than 35 million people—
around 11 percent of the nation—in 47 states.
Working together for the common good was not
a new concept for farmers, who had organized
agriculture­oriented co­ops.
Now hungry for electricity, rural residents
journeyed up and down country roads, seeking
support for development of electric cooperatives.
By and large, they were successful. In “The Next
Greatest Thing: 50 Years of Rural Electrification in
America,” the story is recounted of one farmer
who—told his farm was too far from REA lines—
literally moved his house so he could join the local
co­op and get electricity.
By the end of 1948, more than 40,000
consumers a month were being connected to
lines. In 1949, REA­financed co­ops energized
184,000 miles of electric line—nearly 700 miles a
working day.
As the lights came on across rural America, farm
life was transformed. Farm chores previously done
by hand—with the light of a lantern—became
easier with electricity. So did household activities
such as washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning.
“Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you this,”
another farmer told a gathering at his church in
the early 1940s, shortly after his property was
electrified. “The greatest thing on earth is to have
the love of God in your heart, and the next
greatest thing is to have electricity in your house.”
Today, electricity is available to more than 99
percent of the nation’s rural residents—mostly
through electric co­ops.