PAGE 2 | OCTOBER 2014
The Cowboy Co-op: History of Electric Co-ops BY TOM TATE, NRECA O
ctober is National Co-op Month, so it seems fitting for TCEC to look back to our beginnings and
reflect on the reasons for the creation of electric cooperatives. Tis is a remarkable story that demonstrates the exceptional nature of the Americans who populated rural America, then and now.
Nineteen hundred and thirty five. It’s hard to imagine what life was like outside urban areas in those days, especially through the lens of our 21st century existence – news taking days to travel, dirt roads, manual labor and no electricity. Life for a large portion of the American population was, for all intents and purposes, a frontier life.
Rugged people making a living by strength, persistence and hard, often crushing, work. Relying on their neighbors when things got tough. A way of life alien to most of us today, although a few are still around who remember when the lights first came on. While 95 percent of urban dwellers had electricity, only one in 10 rural Americans was so blessed.
It was in this same year on May 11 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed executive order 7037 creating the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Immediately, “cowboy” cooperatives took the bit in their teeth and started putting together electric cooperatives all across America, TCEC getting its start in 1945.
Some might think that so-called “cowboy co-ops” would be restricted to the West, but the case can be made that every cooperative was formed by the cowboys of their area. Tough, self-reliant, hardworking, honest, resilient men and women willing to take bold action to serve their interests and create a better life for their families. But working in one’s self- interest should not be confused as selfish. Tey were working together for their neighbors and for their communities.
ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES HAVE A RICH HISTORY. PHOTO SOURCE: NRECA.
Te term “cowboy” conjures up Hollywood images of hard fighting, hard drinking, rugged individuals fighting injustice against great odds. Today, it can also be a pejorative term describing someone who is unpredictable and unsophisticated in their actions.
While the actual character of the cowboy cooperative didn’t reflect the Hollywood image, the cooperative model matched the cowboy ethic perfectly. A book written by a retired Wall Street executive, James Owen, captured this ethic and boiled it down to the following 10 points.
1. Live each day with courage. 2. Take pride in your work. 3. Always finish what you start. 4. Do what has to be done. 5. Be tough, but fair. 6. When you make a promise, keep it. 7. Ride for the brand. 8. Talk less and say more.
9. Remember that some things aren’t for sale.
10. Know where to draw the line.
Seems just another way of laying out the cooperative principles that we run our businesses by to this very day. It appears that cowboys and cooperatives were a natural fit.
So these cowboys got busy organizing electric cooperatives and began the work of bringing light to rural America. Tey dug holes by hand. Tey walked the poles up into place to carry the electric lines. All this had to be done with picks, shovels, ladders and whatever else was handy. Most people have seen these poignant photographs, sepia images of remote places with men scrambling to light the rural landscape. Wires had to be man handled into place on the poles and cross arms. Creating the proper tension and securing the conductors to the insulators was all done by main strength and by sight. And when the lines were damaged either by man or nature, it all had to be redone the same way.
Safety equipment was non-existent. Te hard hat was gradually being introduced, and the first job site to mandate their use was the Hoover Dam where falling debris was responsible for many deaths. Fire retardant clothing wasn’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eye and climbing poles often involved ladders rather than spikes and safety belts. Many of these cowboys gave their lives to bring the benefits of electricity to their homes and communities.
Continued on page three
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