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46 <br />cost of drilling wells and installing pumps was formidable. But power costs soon <br />dropped throughout the West, pushing the number of wells even higher. <br />Electrification was part of a national vi sion. Since World War I, scientists and <br />government officials had seen in electricity th e potential for revoluti onary social changes: <br />an end to congested urban slums and coal-f ired factories, repl aced by a revitalized <br />countryside where clean hydroele ctric power could energize decentralized industries with <br />47 <br />the flip of a switch. In 1935, the federal government cr eated the Rural Electrification <br />Administration to finance loans for local cooperatives, which would then provide <br />48 <br />electricity to remote areas. When Morgan County Rural El ectric arrived in the South <br />Platte valley in 1938, pump irrigators were ta rgeted to help finance the endeavor, thereby <br />increasing the region’s reliance on groundw ater. Code saw the connection between <br />pumps and electrification almost immediately. In 1936 local petitioners near the <br />Wyoming border hired him to investigate pumping possibilities in their own area. <br />“Should pumping for irrigation be found feasible ,” Code reported, “the load on the lines <br />would be greatly increased and would favor the building of lines which otherwise would <br />49 <br />not be economically possible.” Pump irrigation, powered by electricity, could make <br />rural electrification in no rthern Colorado a reality. <br />46 <br /> Code estimated in 1937 that pumping equipment alone would cost an irrigator between $4,000 and <br />$5,000. W.E. Code, “Pumping Moves Eastward,” Western Farm Life , 1 June 1937. <br />47 <br /> Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870- <br />1970 (New York: Viking, 1989), 298-309; Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, <br />1880-1930 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). <br />48 <br /> Harry Slattery, Rural America Lights Up: The Story of Rural Electrification (Washington: National <br />Home Library Foundation, 1940). <br />49 <br /> W.E. Code to L.V. Toyne, “Confidential report on reconnaissance survey of rural electrification in an <br />area in Weld County in which the towns of Herefo rd and Grover are located,” 1936. Box 14, GDC. <br />18 <br />