Bartlett Electric Cooperative - Texas Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Marker erected by Texas Historical Commission.

Texas Historical Commission Atlas data:

Index Entry: Bartlett Electric Cooperative
Address: 27492 SH 95
City: Bartlett
County: Bell
Subject Codes: Federal programs; factories, industrial buildings; Business topics, general
Year Marker Erected: 1985
Marker Location: 3.3 mi. N on SH 95. Moved Apr. 2006 from 104 E. Pietzsch St, Williamson Co.
Marker Size: 27" x 42"

Marker Number: 313 Marker Text: Although the town of Bartlett had regular electric service by 1905, farmers in the surrounding rural area were not supplied with electricity until thirty years later. On May 11, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) as part of his New Deal emergency relief program. Designed to bring electricity to the rural areas of America, the REA also became a lending agency to help finance such projects. In 1935, the REA lent $33,000 to the Bartlett Community Light & Power Company. Later known as the Bartlett Electric Cooperative, the BCL&P built a 59-mile power line to serve the rural areas surrounding Bartlett. The first section of the line, which was to serve 110 farm homes, became operative in March 1936. Power was provided by the city's municipal light plant, which had been built two years earlier. As the first REA project in Texas and the first in the nation to be energized under an REA loan, the Bartlett Electric Cooperative played an important role in the modernization of area farms. (1985)

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