The Power of Connections

CHAPTER ONE

CONNECTING COMMUNITIES: THE EVOLUT ION OF CREC

T homas A. Edison invented the incandescent lamp in 1879, but it would be more than fifty years before the people of rural America would have access to that incredible discovery. The establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 enabled non-profit organizations of citizens to form cooperatives for supplying electricity to their citizen members. Three years later, Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act, which provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas across the United States. It didn’t take long for rural electric cooperatives to begin forming across Missouri, and on March 6, 1941, the Cuivre River Electric Cooperative (CREC) filed its articles of incorporation.

Guided by twelve men and women who cared deeply about enhancing the quality of life for their communities, the cooperative began its mission of bringing power to farms, homes, neighborhoods, and businesses. The vision and fortitude of these pioneers launched CREC on an eighty-year journey from a fledgling organization to a Missouri cooperative with the largest membership in the state: nearly seventy-thousand member households across five counties. Their perseverance laid a solid foundation that would withstand floods, fires, economic crises, a pandemic, and countless other challenges.

CREC celebrated its eightieth anniversary on March 6, 2021.

The vision and fortitude of these pioneers launched CREC on an eighty-year journey from a fledgling organization to a Missouri cooperative with the largest membership in the state: nearly seventy-thousand member households across five counties.

10 Cuivre River Electric Cooperative