“Everything’s up to date in Kansas City,” goes the Rodgers and Hammerstein song written about life on the prairie in the 1930s. While electricity and cable cars had come to the cities, in rural areas such as Horton, Kansas, people were still reliant on burning wood, coal, or kerosene for energy and heat. The Rural Electrification Act was signed into law on May 20, 1936, formalizing one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The act led to the establishment of rural electric cooperatives, which helped to spread the…
