Thumb Electric Cooperative

June 18th of each year marks another anniversary of something that was only a dream not many years ago to most people of the Thumb area.  It was on June 18, 1938, that the Thumb Electric Cooperative of Ubly, Michigan, began for the first time bringing the benefits of electric service to approximately 5,000 farm homes.  For years, farm people had imagined that electricity would be a great help to them. Their family and friends in the local cities and villages knew of the benefits of electricity, but because farms were spread so far apart in the rural areas, it was not profitable for Investor Owned Electric Utilities to build lines in these sparsely populated areas of the Thumb.  Rather than continuing to live without electricity, they formed a member-owned Rural Electric Cooperative to take advantage of FDR’S New Deal program called “REA” or The Rural Electrification Administration.  REA would provide low interest loans to cooperatives to build lines in areas no one was willing to serve