Our History
It may be something we take for granted now, but in 1938, electric power was little more than a dream for most people in farming communities and other rural areas in Texas. Shunned by investor-owned utility companies that didn’t want to build the lines to carry electricity out to farmers and others in rural Northeast Texas, the people in the areas we serve today finally took matters into their own hands—and made their dream of reliable, reasonably priced electric power come true.
Starting Small, Moving Fast
Wanting a better quality of life for their communities, a group of local leaders joined together to form the Wood County Electric Cooperative to bring electric power to this part of East Texas for the first time in history. Taking advantage of funding and other resources from the federal government’s newly created Rural Electrification Agency, they signed up 1,100 members at five dollars each and put up the first 100+ miles of lines to deliver electricity to them. Ten years later, the co-op had grown to serve more than five times as many members with nearly 1200 miles of lines.
Growing and Going Strong
Wood County Electric Cooperative has seen steady growth over the decades, adding thousands to its membership since 1938 and expanding its infrastructure to continue to provide reliable, low-cost electricity through the years. Today, the co-op maintains more than 4,000 miles of lines serving over 30,000 meters in its nine-county service area.