Brazos River Transmission Electric Cooperative

When the Rural Electrification Administration began in 1935, only 2.3 percent of Texas farms had central-station power. It became a lending agency within months, Congress made that permanent in 1936, and groups of farmers and ranchers organized cooperatives to borrow. The Handbook of Texas says Bartlett's 58-mile line, energized March 9, 1936, is claimed as the first REA project in the nation. By 1966 the loans had financed seventy-seven distribution systems and two generation and transmission cooperatives. By 1965 only 2 percent of Texas farms were still without electricity, the reverse of the 1935 figure.

What the plaque says

Brazos River Transmission Electric Cooperative The first generation and transmission electric cooperative in Texas, this corporation was organized in February 1941 by eleven small electric cooperatives which had been established under the rural electrification administration. With a goal of providing affordable wholesale power costs and improved service to its members, the cooperative first established offices in Fort Worth. In 1945 the headquarters were moved to Waco, and service eventually was extended to a large area of central and North Texas. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — 6.3 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 6.6 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 7.0 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 7.1 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Hewitt Baptist — 1.0 mi
• Zion United Church of Christ — 1.5 mi
• Central Presbyterian Church — 3.1 mi
• Providence Sanitarium — 3.3 mi