Sixty-five years ago, when Jackson Electric Membership Corporation was formed, life in rural Georgia was much more difficult than it is today.

 

Cooperative vehicles and line stringing methods had humble beginnings (left). Jackson EMC's founding fathers - local leaders who worked tirelessly promoting the cooperative idea.

Daily chores included cleaning and filling the kerosene lanterns used for light, and hauling water for both household water and livestock. Large-scale irrigation was impractical without electric pumps. Cooking and hot water required starting a fire in a wood stove, even on the hottest Georgia days. The bathroom was an outhouse out back, because for most people there was no indoor plumbing without a well pump.

 

Electricity had changed the lives of most people in cities years before. Thomas Edison began the first commercial power station in New York City in 1882. More than 70 percent of people in cities — where the number of houses per mile of line meant sure profits for electricity companies — had electricity by the 1930s. Less than 10 percent of our nation's farmers, however, had electric service. The high cost of stringing lines to widely separated farms and the low potential for return on that investment discouraged private, investor-owned utilities from expanding into rural areas.

 

One man is credited with changing the equation — Franklin Delano Roosevelt. President Roosevelt had promoted rural electrification as governor of New York. In his many visits to Warm Springs for polio treatments, Roosevelt saw firsthand how lack of electricity was hampering the rural South development. In a 1932 campaign speech, Mr. Roosevelt said, "Electricity is no longer a luxury. It is a definite necessity . . . It can relieve the drudgery of the housewife and lift the great burden off the shoulders of the hardworking farmer."

On May 11, 1935, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 7037, creating the Rural Electrification Administration. The next year, Congress passed the Norris-Rayburn Act, authorizing $410 million for a ten-year loan program to electrify American farms.

 

 

The original hope was that, with inexpensive REA loans, private utilities would come forward to develop rural lines.

 

This failed to occur, and it became clear that rural people must take the initiative in getting electricity to their communities. To do so, they had to create cooperatives, demonstrating to the REA that their project could operate successfully and the government loan would be repaid with interest.

 

The hard work of organizing fell to local leaders who had to sell the cooperative idea, organize meetings, collect membership fees, sign up potential members and obtain REA approval. If organizers could sign up at least three members to the mile and each member paid a $5 membership fee, REA stated that it would probably approve a loan for the new cooperative to string lines. Organizers also had to obtain easements for lines from each property owner.

 

In the 1930s, $5 was a lot of money for cash-poor farmers, particularly when they were then faced with the costs of wiring their homes and purchasing electric equipment and appliances. Sign-up teams learned to appeal to the farmer's wife, emphasizing lights to help the children study and electric refrigeration.

J.W. Jackson, Jackson County agent from 1935 to 1939, worked tirelessly to bring electricity to rural Jackson County. During 1936, Jackson held meetings in practically every school district to talk about REA and what it would take to get electric lines strung in Jackson County. Mr. Jackson surveyed county farmers and sent the information to the REA, which informed him that the farm income in Jackson County was too low to qualify. Then the Commerce Kiwanis Club sponsored a meeting of farmers from Banks, Jackson and Madison counties to discuss the possibility of organizing an electric cooperative to serve the three-county area.

 

REA looked more favorably on this proposal, but informed Mr. Jackson that all of the customer contracts, easements for power lines, membership fees and other organizational requirements including a meeting to elect a board of directors, had to be completed before the REA could examine the project.

 

On May 4, 1938, a meeting of citizens from all three counties elected seven directors — W.H. Booth, R.T. Farmer and J.C. Head from Jackson County; W.C. Alexander and Mrs. W.M. Thomas from Banks County; and L.C. Seagraves and George N. Stovall from Madison County.

 

The charter for Jackson Electric Membership Corporation was granted on June 17, 1938, so named because the cooperative was incorporated in Jackson County.

 

In July 1938, the REA administrator notified the cooperative that $157,000 had been allotted for the first line project, which totaled 171 miles and 664 farms. The loan was for 25 years at a 2.73 percent interest rate.

 

The board named Robert J. Kelly as Jackson EMC superintendent at a salary of $100 per month, plus actual expenses up to $50. The Jackson Herald wrote that Jackson EMC "could not have hired a better man than Robert J. Kelly. He is a native son of Jackson County. His father, mother, grandfathers and grandmothers are to the manor born . . . Besides being a skilled and accomplished engineer, he is a man of business sagacity and looks carefully after the finances of the corporation."

On January 2, 1939, construction of distribution lines began east of Jefferson, near the location of the current headquarters. Line stringing went swiftly. REA developed "assembly-line" methods to build rural lines for less money. The driver of a staking team would move slowly along the route for a new line. A boy in the back of the truck, equipped with a 300-foot rope and a pile of wooden stakes, would throw a stake every 300 feet. Behind came a man to drive the stakes, a crew to hand dig the holes and the equipment crew, which determined what type of pole to drop off at each hole. Still another crew attached brackets and insulators to the poles. Additional crews came behind to set poles and string wires, hang transformers and install meters. On a good day, it was not unusual to build three miles of line per crew.

 

Finally, on April 10, 1939, the lights came on in the homes of the first Jackson EMC customers. The first month's billing was to 90 members for a total of $122.65. In those days — when most customers had only a few electric lights, an iron and a radio — the average number of kilowatt-hours used per customer in that first month was only 22.