Dee D. Flint wrote:




And most of the electrification of rural America was NOT done by the
utilities. The rural residents themselves banded together and got the lines
run. Once the lines were in place, then the public "futility" was happy to
take over as the major expense had already been covered by someone else.

Most of the electrification of rural America was accomplished via the
Rural Electrification Authority aka REA. There had to be so many houses
per mile to justify the cost of running the lines and you had to be
within a certain distance of the right-of-way to get service or pay for
the cost of the line to be run to your residence.