Pee Dee Electric

Pee Dee Electric Membership Corporation was organized on January 13, 1939 as Anson Mutual Electric Corporation. Originally the cooperative was to serve the rural farm homes of Anson County and parts of Union and Stanly counties. As soon as the cooperative became organized, the people in Richmond County who needed electricity asked to join the cooperative rather than start a separate organization. The cooperative was reorganized as Pee Dee Electric membership on August 19, 1940 at the annual meeting. The reorganization added Richmond, Montgomery and Scotland counties to the cooperative service area. The work of the cooperative was well received by the rural farms and families and Moore County joined on October 13, 1945. The name Pee Dee Electric Membership Corporation comes from the Pee Dee River, which runs through the heart of the cooperative service area.

In 1939 a loan from REA was approved and Pee Dee Electric began construction of electric lines to the rural areas investor owned utilities would not serve. The investor owned utility companies were not interested in bringing electricity to rural areas with low densities of population. Deemed as unprofitable areas for their investors, these people lived without electricity and the luxury and convenience of decent living. In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt's executive order began the rural electrification administration and congress passed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936. This act provided loans to Electric cooperatives to build power lines to rural America. ------> Read more!