This feature today in the LA Times is headed: "Lights Going Out on the High Plains as Population Shrinks - North Dakota has lost more than half its farms since the 1940s, when electricity came to rural areas. Now, idle power lines pose fire dangers." Here is how it starts:
ROBINSON, N.D. — John Randall will never forget the day more than 50 years ago when electric power came to the countryside. "It was really something to see when all these farms got lit up," Randall recalled.Posted by Marcia Oddi at March 21, 2004 11:52 AMRandall, 76, has been farming all his life in Robinson, a central North Dakota town of about 70 people — just as his father and grandfather did. In 1949, he became the first in the family to farm with electricity. And he may be one of the few left in the area.
"There aren't too many farms around here to light up anymore," Randall said. "It's gone from dark to light to dark."
Thousands of miles of power lines that once brought the promise of better lives to farmers now lead to abandoned farmsteads that have fallen victim to a harsh rural economy.
About 20% of the state's 60,000 miles of rural power lines are eligible to be "retired" because they are not being used, said Dennis Hill, general manager of the North Dakota Assn. of Rural Electric Cooperatives.