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Flashbacks: Electricity Comes to a North Dakota Farm
An entry in Pauline Olson’s diary. (Editor’s note: All quotes from Pauline Olson are transcribed as she wrote them.) Telephone. Electricity. Television. Pauline Olson (1885–1969) saw each of these...
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The Small-Hydro Rush of 1978: Battling the 'Power Pirates'
(Photo courtesy iStock/Getty) Most people know about the two big 19th century gold rushes: the one in California in 1849 and the one in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 1896. Some people have also heard of...
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The Story of Mod 1
The Mod 1 turbine. (Photo courtesy Natasha Thompson) In the mid-1970s, President Jimmy Carter was making a big push for “alternative” energy sources that could lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil....
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Flashbacks: 'Full Partners in the 20th Century'
Montana’s Yaak River Valley. (Photo by David M. Carson) At precisely 3:00 in the afternoon on Oct. 10, 1963, lightbulbs blinked on in Montana’s Yaak River Valley. Belatedly, central-station...
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Flashbacks: 'They Called Me a Communist'
Mansfield Dam (Photo courtesy Ellison Photo Co.) Future President Lyndon B. Johnson’s top priority as a freshman member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937 was getting $5 million from...
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Flashbacks: No Kidding. You've got Lights!
Farmers’ Electric Cooperative headquarters. (Photo courtesy Farmers’ Electric) Most electric co-ops have preserved an anecdote or two about their early years. Farmers’ Electric Cooperative’s (FEC) best...
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Wild Co-op Country
A grainy image from the summer of 1985 shows article author Mark Glaess (center) with Oregon statewide colleague Sara Baker-Sifford (center-right) and Wasco EC board member Jean McKinney (center-left)...
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Flashbacks: Taming the Last 'Power Desert'
Nevada high desert with Ruth Ely Mountains. (Photo courtesy Getty Images/Gunter_Nezhoda) Those lonesome, sun-seared expanses of the West that are so inviting to today’s solar developers were once known...
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Flashbacks: 'Tell the Nation the Truth'
Before Touchstone Energy® Cooperatives, which turned 20 this year, there was “Tell the Nation the Truth,” a national advertising program run by NRECA that was better known by its explosive nickname...
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