Electricity Now Available to One in Four Farm Homes, 1939

“Farmers are Power-Minded” by Dudley Bagley, Chairman, North Carolina R.E.A., March, 1939, the Carolina Co-operator

A lineman here connects another farm home to a rural line.

Four years ago the number of North Carolina farms served by electric power lines totaled only 11,558. The number now electrified is 62,206, and a conservative estimate will boost this figure to 74,500 before another year has passed.

Electricity is now available, moreover, to one in every four of the 282,253 North Carolina farms with occupied dwellings (listed in the last census) or a total of 78,906.

The power companies have co-operated with the program and have invested $6,530,341 in building 6,876 miles of line since 1935. The Federal Rural Electrification Administration has loaned to co-operatives $3,744,450 to build 3,520 miles of line, and the various municipalities have spent $856,940 to build 1,165 miles of line into adjoining rural areas.

A careful survey of several North Carolina counties showed that one year after the completion of a rural power line, the average farmer-customer had invested $180 in wiring and electrical appliances. This indicates that, while the various agencies were spending $11,131,731 in building the lines, the farmers were spending a total of $10,675,120, or almost dollar for dollar. This brings to a total of $21,806,851 the amount invested in rural electrification in the State, 82 percent of which has been expended within the past four years.

The future of rural electrification in North Carolina depends upon what happens on the lines already built. It makes no difference whether the lines are built by government loans, towns, or the power companies; they should be part of a self-sustaining system.

During this year we may reasonably expect the power companies, Federal Rural Electrification Administration and various municipalities to spend about $3,000,000 in building 2,800 new miles of rural lines to serve an additional 12,300 customers. These figures, of course, are to be taken as estimates. Much will depend upon unpredictable factors and the actual progress made in 1939 may vary considerably in either direction.

What happens after this year is also difficult to foresee. Although electricity is now available to one in every four farm families in North Carolina, only one in every five is actually using it. This compares, however, to one in five for Virginia and one in seven for South Carolina. According to statistics gathered by Electrical World, North Carolina added more rural customers last year than any other state in the South and was exceeded by only five other states in the Union. But this curve of rapid progress during the past four years will definitely level off as future lines are built. Of the 282,000 occupied dwellings in North Carolina’s 310,000 farms, only 156,000 homes whose owners’ incomes are considerably above the average. Then, too, many homes of farm families fully able to subscribe to electric current are located in the more sparsely settled areas, and these will, other factors being equal, be the last to be electrified.

Rural electrification is not a fixed and unchangeable program, but develops gradually as farm people become more interested, and as newer and less costly methods of financing and construction are worked out. The program has been progressive and although the peak of construction has passed, power lines will gradually be extended into every community whenever and wherever farm families can use sufficient power to make the extension pay out in a reasonable length of time.