Bartlett Electric Cooperative
Bartlett, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
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.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Though the town of Bartlett had electricity by 1905, the farms around it stayed dark for another thirty years—an everyday hardship across rural America. That changed with Franklin Roosevelt's 1935 executive order creating the Rural Electrification Administration, which lent the local light-and-power company $33,000 to string a 59-mile line to some 110 farm homes. Energized in 1936, it was the first REA project in Texas and the first in the nation to come alive under an REA loan.
Why it matters
Rural electrification was one of the New Deal's most transformative achievements, closing the gap between city and countryside and modernizing American farm life almost overnight.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early twentieth century, electricity divided America in two. Towns and cities were wired, with electric lights, motors, and new appliances. But on farms, life went on much as it had for generations. Light came from kerosene lamps, water was pumped by hand or windmill, and much of the heavy work of farm households, including washing, ironing, and hauling water, was done by hand.
Bartlett was a clear example of that split. The town had regular electric service by 1905, but the farms around it waited another thirty years. Private utilities generally saw little profit in stringing miles of line to serve a few scattered farmhouses, so the countryside was left in the dark. By the mid-1930s, only a small fraction of American farms had electric service.
Then came the Great Depression. Farm families in Texas and across the country were struggling, and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal set out to use federal power to provide relief and modernize the economy. Rural electrification became one of its most ambitious goals.
People & events
On May 11, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Rural Electrification Administration. It began as part of the New Deal's emergency relief program, but it quickly became something more lasting: a lending agency that financed power lines into places private companies had chosen not to serve.
Bartlett moved fast. In 1935, the REA lent $33,000 to the Bartlett Community Light & Power Company, later known as the Bartlett Electric Cooperative. With that loan, the company built a 59-mile power line into the countryside surrounding the town. The electricity itself came from Bartlett's municipal light plant, which the city had built just two years earlier. In other words, the local community's own investment helped make the project possible.
In March 1936, the first section of the line was energized, serving 110 farm homes. It's worth imagining what that meant. A switch on the wall instead of a lamp to fill and trim. Electric pumps, refrigerators, and radios that could become part of everyday life. The marker notes that this was the first REA project in Texas, and the first in the nation to be energized under an REA loan, putting this small Central Texas town at the very start of a national transformation.
Its place in the American story
Rural electrification is often counted among the New Deal's most lasting achievements. The REA model, with federal loans supporting locally organized utilities, spread across the country, and electric cooperatives became a familiar part of rural America. Many of them are still operating today.
The effect on farm life was enormous. Electricity eased the heavy household work that had fallen especially on rural women, brought modern equipment to farm operations, and connected families to the wider world through radio. It helped narrow a gap between city and country that had grown wider for decades.
Bartlett's role was to show that it could work. Being the first project in the nation to be energized under an REA loan meant that this town's 59-mile line served as an early test of a national idea. Every rural cooperative line built in the years that followed traces back, in spirit, to beginnings like this one.
If you visit
Bartlett is a small Central Texas town with a historic downtown, surrounded by the same farm country that waited so long for power. Standing by the marker, look out toward the fields and try to picture them at night before 1936: dark houses scattered across the land, while the lights of town glowed in the distance.
As you drive the back roads, notice the power lines running along them. It's easy to ignore them, but here they represent a hard-won change. Each pole connects to the idea, first tested in places like Bartlett, that country families deserved the same modern comforts as people in town.
Bartlett fits nicely into a drive through the farm towns of Central Texas, between Interstate 35 and the farmland to the east. It's a good stop for families. Children who have never known a house without electricity can find it striking that their great-grandparents' generation lived here with lamps and hand pumps, and that one small town helped change that.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Related events
- · Rural Electrification Administration
- · New Deal
Themes & tags
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