Rural Electrification: Somerset Cooperative

In nineteen thirty-six, most Pennsylvania farms had no electric service at all. Running power lines to scattered rural homesteads simply was not profitable for private utilities, so the federal Rural Electrification Administration stepped in with low-interest loans and a new model: consumer-owned cooperatives. Within a few years, many such co-ops formed across Pennsylvania.

One of them, Somerset Rural Electric Cooperative, was incorporated in nineteen thirty-nine, organized to serve farmers in southwestern Pennsylvania and nearby Maryland. These co-ops were not charity. Farmers themselves were the owners, each buying a membership stake and sharing in the governance.

Electrification transformed daily life on the farm, powering water pumps, milking machines, and lights in the barn. Somerset Rural Electric still serves this region today, a direct descendant of that New Deal-era effort.