As we enter the new millennium, it's appropriate to look back.

Today we count on electricity to run our appliances and other gadgets, usually taking it for granted. Times have changed since the early 1930s when electricity was just a spark in farmers' and rural folks' minds in Illinois and around the nation.

As cities were connected by power companies, rural folks usually were neglected. The biggest reason for this was a lack of population density. More people lived in urban areas as opposed to rural, making it more "profitable" for companies to offer electricity to those living within municipalities, while all but ignoring the needs of rural people.

"Only about one percent of Illinois farms had power in the 1920s."

Only about one percent of Illinois farms had power in the 1920s, and the next decade saw little improvement as an additional 10 percent of potential rural customers were "hooked up." It was clear to those living in rural areas of the United States they were falling behind as compared to their foreign counterparts. In Norway, Sweden and New Zealand, nearly two-thirds of rural homes were supplied electricity in some manner or another, while nearly all farmers in the Netherlands enjoyed electrical benefits.

It was this era of rural life in the United States that many older folks fondly remember. It was a time of family, of honesty, of God fearing folk, when times were slower and more down-to-earth than today. But when asked, these same people will recall the trials of life without electricity.

Wayne Laning of Mt. Sterling, former director of Adams Electric Cooperative recalled, "The hot nights stand out most in my mind. We'd put a mattress in the hayrack and go out into the field where it was cool, but the bugs would come after us." Remember, there was no air conditioning or electric fans. People simply endured the hot and, conversely, cold weather.

Lack of heating and cooling weren't the only problems electricity would remedy. Another problem was dim lighting in the evenings and early morning from kerosene lamps, resulting in poor reading conditions and fire hazards.

If power companies saw these problems, they were insensitive to them. Some farmers, within a stone's throw of power lines, were told they would be charged up to $3,000 for an electrical hook-up, which the utility would then own.

However, as increasing numbers of studies were conducted, especially within the Midwest, it was discovered rural electrification

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could be feasible. Following these studies, farmers discovered although electrical bills increased with usage, total operating costs decreased.

Despite these results, power companies remained reluctant to extend service to rural areas, arguing the "few light bulbs" gained would not pay for the $1,500 - $2,000 per mile installation costs for service lines.

As the 1920s slipped away and the world was recovering from the Great Depression of the 1930s, movement increased rapidly towards rural electrification. Support grew for programs through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal to provide electricity to rural Americans. Through the efforts of Morris Cooke, chairman of the Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration, $100 million was allocated towards rural electrification in 1935, giving birth to the Rural Electrification Administration (REA).

The state of Illinois followed in 1936 with the formation of the State Rural Electrification Committee. Although the committee didn't play an essential role in rural electrification, it did lend state support and organization to the projects.

The first officially organized cooperative in the state remains in operation today. Farmers Mutual Electric Company was officially formed on Jan. 16, 1936 in Geneseo. By September 1937, the co-op was serving 160 members over 69 miles of lines. Other Illinois co-ops whose projects were approved during 1936 were Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative Co., Auburn; Menard Electric Cooperative, Petersburg; Wayne-White Counties Electric Cooperative, Fairfield; Pike County Electric Cooperative and Scott County Electric Cooperative. The latter two would later merge into Illinois Rural Electric Cooperative, Winchester.

By 1940, there were 21 cooperatives operating in downstate Illinois. While the cooperative "spark" would grow into a flame, many of the farmers who owned generators realized the benefits of forming co-ops.

Charlie Miller of Industry, and a former director of McDonough Power Cooperative, remembered his father's trip to a meeting to form a co-op in the middle of planting season, 1938.

By 1940, there were 21 cooperatives operating in downstate Illinois.

"My family was fortunate enough to have a Delco plant on our farm so I couldn't see how my father could even think of leaving the farm when we had corn to plant...he recognized what he could do if he had more electricity," Miller recalled.

The growth of co-ops increased over the next decade, but not without complications from the power companies. They tried to halt the co-ops' growth through two methods - building power lines, called "spite lines," to cut off a co-ops' progression, and by starting rumors of the reliability and "staying power" of cooperatives.

Couple these problems with a typical cost of $5 membership (enough for a week's groceries for the family) and a $3 minimum monthly electric bill, and you can see why some farmers were hesitant about signing up.

Other obstacles existed, including obtaining right-of-ways for the lines. Problems included language and cultural differences, love for trees and feuds.

Bob Vander Pluym, retired manager of Clinton County Electric Cooperative, said knowing how to speak German helped co-op developers in obtaining easements for lines in an area filled with many German immigrant dairy farmers. "You'd really hit home with those people when you spoke German with them. If anyone else would go out there and talk with those people, you could almost see right away that there was going to be a problem getting right-of-way."

Vic Jostes, of rural Nokomis, and a longtime Shelby Electric director, recalled, "In 1938, when we were trying to get right-of-way, there was always someone who didn't want to give up their trees. They didn't necessarily care whether or not they got electricity, and sometimes they didn't care if their neighbor got power." But the "hard cases" eventually came around, which helped the process.

One advantage of cooperatives is the uniformity of the lines and equipment, enabling cooperatives to work together during emergencies such as severe storms.

By the 1940s it cost co-ops about $825 to build a mile of line, while other utilities maintained it should cost $2,000.

As co-ops were building and progress accelerated, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Americans found themselves in a global war.

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As a result, the materials and personnel required to construct the electrical lines were diverted to the war effort and rural electric progress virtually stopped.

Due to the rationing of materials, cooperatives saw the need to unite under the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), formed in Washington, D.C., in March 1942. By September nearly 150 cooperatives had joined, increasing to over 250 members two months later. A statewide organization, the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives, was founded the same year.

Rural electrical leaders were called to a meeting of the NRECA in St. Louis the following January. Over the weeks, the group lobbied Washington to ease restrictions on supplies for the co-ops. Citing improved food and fiber production, the group won its first battle against the big companies. Hookups were allowed under certain conditions, including a required number of livestock, which some farms could not meet. Those farms were not hooked up until the end of the war.

" By the mid-1950s, nearly every rural customer who wanted electricity could get it."

As the war ended, so did restrictions and the lack of manpower. REA received a new birth as it was made a permanent agency in 1943. Interest rates on loans were set at two percent, for 35 years. With half of the job to go, nearly two and a half million homes remained to be energized nationwide. In just six years, more than three-quarters had electricity. By the mid-1950s, nearly every rural customer who wanted electricity could get it.

Margaret Monroe, a 36-year employee of Adams Electric Cooperative, recalled her family's first day with electricity.

"We had kept the switch on in the kitchen for several days because the power was supposed to be switched on any time. It came on right at noon and my mother was so excited she ran around the house yelling, 'it's on, it's on'," she said. "That evening we turned on every light in the house and went outside and just stared at it."

After lights, the next logical steps were basic appliances - refrigerators, irons, washing machines and radios. Outside, perhaps the first addition to any farm was that of a pump for the well, which led obviously to indoor plumbing.

Wayne Fuchs, of Farmersville, who helped wire some of those early homes before working at Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative, recalled, "people were so enthusiastic that they actually cried" when their power was connected.

And, although residents had a had a relatively easy time adjusting, farm animals often did not.

Delbert Boston, longtime Rural Electric Convenience lineman and operating superintendent, recalled his family's cows. "It took about a week to get ours used to the brighter lights . . . and about the same for the milking machine, before they finally settled down. For those first few nights you'd have thought they were bucking broncs." He added that the family had to actually turn off the new lights and go back to the lamps to coax the cows into the barn for the first few nights.

It was probably the women's lives that were vastly improved by electricity, according to Vander Pluym.

"They scrubbed those clothes ... and hung those overalls and everything else on the line and then came back and ironed with those 'sad irons' that they would heat on the stove. They just never break," he recalled.

After the basics were met, farmers usually purchased the family luxuries - electric fryers, mixers, coffee pots, can openers, water heaters, fans and televisions. For the farm, power tools, milk coolers, electric fences, the first grain dryers and other labor savers gradually were purchased.

Naturally, once rural residents got started on electricity, the trend grew and co-ops became more than just electric suppliers; they were appliance dealers, electricians, pro moters and engineers. In the 1950s and 1960s, electrical heating and security lighting became big pushes. From the 1960s and into the 1970s electrical loads increased as electric motors and irrigation increased productivity on farms.

For years, co-ops were promoting electrical appliances to increase electric usage; then, in the 70s, the oil crisis hit the nation and energy conservation was the big issue.

Although it was a trying period for the co-ops, load management became another service which could be offered to their members.

As co-ops rolled along through the "me" decade of the 1980s, they began to think in terms of diversity in offering additional services to members. As a result, co-ops have branched out into other services, including cell phones, satellite services, internet services, security systems and a variety of others.

Next month we'll examine the future direction of co-ops.

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