Pennsylvania's First Rural Electric Pole

On August fifth, nineteen thirty-six, the Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperative Association placed Pennsylvania's first rural electric pole right here. The cooperative had been incorporated just months earlier, on April thirtieth, nineteen thirty-six, making it the state's first rural electric cooperative.

The Rural Electrification Administration, created by President Roosevelt in nineteen thirty-five, was transforming American farm life. Before federal rural electrification programs, the vast majority of American farms had no electricity at all. Utility companies considered rural lines unprofitable and refused to build them. The cooperative model, where farmers pooled resources and formed their own utility, changed everything. Within a few years, more such cooperatives had formed across Pennsylvania. The pole placed here in Crawford County was a small piece of a national revolution that brought electric light and power to millions of rural Americans who had been left in the dark.