Watford City, ND - McKenzie Electric Cooperative, Inc.

winter, the clothes were hung until they were frozen and
brought in to thaw and finish drying in the kitchen, basement
or wherever the housewife could find a place to hang them.
Food was cooked over wood or coal ranges and it was constant
work to preserve the food without refrigeration.
The work on the farm continued to depend on non-electric
power well into the 20th century.
The 1920s brought the Great Depression and the drought,
which wiped out many farms. At this point, the future of a
rural electric system seemed almost impossible. The investorowned
power companies continued to insist that the cost of
stretching power lines across rural America was prohibitive.
Some farms did find power in those years. Farms which
were close to town or on direct lines between lucrative
markets might be added to the power companies if the
farmers could meet the price, and many more remote farmers
put in their own power generating sources. These were either
gas motors or wind-charged generators which produced 32
volts of power. The units had a battery system which was
charged by the generator. They were limited in power and
basically provided some lights and a few small appliances.
During those dust- and despair-darkened days of the ’20s
and early ’30s, the promise of power seemed to slip further
from the farms and hamlets of America.
There had been plans aplenty for the electrification of rural
America. Each and every one had floundered and died before
it could come to fruition. In 1935, the recently inaugurated
president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt received
a memo which outlined the whys, wherefores and hows of a
rural electric system. With pressure from various farm
organizations, the decision was made to establish the Rural
Electrification Unit.
The program was seen by Roosevelt and others in Washington,
D.C., as basically a relief
program. It would provide
money to build lines, thus
creating jobs for the unemployed.
The first money for
the program was $100
million from a $5 billion
public works bill.
Within a few months, the
head of the unit, Morris
Cooke, was battling to have
the unit become a separate
agency with permanent
funding. On May 11, 1935,
the president signed an
executive order creating the
Rural Electrification
Administration (REA). After
a pitched battle in Congress,
the Rural Electrification Act
was passed and signed into
law by President Roosevelt
May 21, 1936.
During that time, the form
In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt , signed an executive order
creating the Rural Electrification Administration (REA.
of the REA as a lending institution for rural electric
construction came into being. It was during the first month
that it became clear that the existing power companies were
not interested in bringing electricity to the remote farms,
thinking the cost prohibitive. What those power companies
deemed unfeasible, many hastily formed cooperatives heralded
as their chance for affordable power. Applications for loan
money began to come into Washington, D.C., almost as soon
as the unit was established.
Reading about the new REA in Washington, D.C., were
far-thinking men in McKenzie County. Over coffee at the
neighbors and around the stores and elevators, they began
to discuss the possibilities of bringing power to this area.
It would take almost nine years for McKenzie Electric
Cooperative to be officially incorporated and almost two
years after that for the first lights to come on, powered by
electricity provided by McKenzie Electric. But this was the
beginning – a beginning we must not forget.
The 1920s brought the Great Depression and the drought, which wiped out many farms.
SEPTEMBER 2010 • McKENZIE ELECTRIC NEWS—C3
McKENZIE ELECTRIC