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REA begins bringing electricity to rural Texas
On this day in 1936, a fifty-eight-mile power line near Bartlett, Texas,
was energized, according to some sources the first in the nation under
the Rural Electrification Administration. When President Franklin D.
Roosevelt began the REA in May 1935, only about 2 percent of the farms
in Texas (and only about 10 percent nationally) had electricity. The REA
was originally intended to be a large-scale depression relief agency
like the Work Projects Administration and the Civilian Conservation
Corps, but became a lending agency instead with the passage of
legislation cosponsored by Sam Rayburn. The $33,000 loan to a group of
farmers at Bartlett was one of the first ten loans made by the REA. The
REA had an incalculable impact on life in rural Texas, especially in the
Panhandle, which had become something of a proving ground for New Deal
programs thanks to the influence of Marvin Jones, chairman of the House
Agricultural Committee. The REA first brought electric power to the
rural Panhandle in Deaf Smith County in 1937. By 1965, instead of only 2
percent of Texas farms with electricity, there were only 2 percent
without electricity.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- RURAL ELECTRIFICATION
- GREAT DEPRESSION
- RAYBURN, SAMUEL TALIAFERRO
- PANHANDLE
- JONES, JOHN MARVIN
- ELECTRICAL POWER
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Spanish expedition enters Texas (1707)
- State steps into sheep wars (1881)
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