It was a literal lightbulb moment: On May 25, 1939, Cherryland Electric Cooperative energized its first 302 miles of power line, bringing electricity to dozens of rural northern Michigan property owners for the first time. The story of getting to that point is a dramatic one, marked by dynamite sticks, turf wars, and high-flying, death-defying acts on the part of Cherryland’s first electrical linemen.

The tale starts on May 1, 1935, when, in the midst of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Rural Electric Administration as part of The New Deal. The agency, formed by executive order, was intended to promote the proliferation of electricity to farmers and rural residents across the United States. It wasn’t until the following year, though, that Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act, which created a federal loan program for rural communities to actually develop electrical infrastructure.

In 2013, Cherryland Electric published Lighting the Way: Cherryland Electric Cooperative’s First 75 Years. Written by now-retired Cherryland Communications Coordinator Nick Edson, the book details the birth and evolution of the co-op through the years. According to Edson, the legislation quickly changed the landscape of electrical availability in the U.S.

“Within four years following the end of World War II, the number of rural electric systems in operation doubled, the number of consumers connected more than tripled, and the miles of energized line grew more than fivefold,” Edson writes. “By 1953, more than 90 percent of U.S. farms had electricity.”

In the mid-1930s, though, only three percent of the rural population in Michigan had access to power. While cities like Detroit had electricity powering homes, businesses, and factories – and while Traverse City itself had power, thanks in part to Traverse City Light & Power (established in 1912) – the rural areas were still stuck in the era of wood ranges, washboards, and kerosene lamps. Not only were existing utility companies not serving these markets, but many didn’t even see the value in trying to. Edson notes that, in July of 1935, a group of utility company executives had written a report concluding that “very few farms require electricity for major farm operations.”

In 1938, three men from the Grand Traverse area – Max Goin of Lake Ann, Eino Lehto of Copemish, and Frank Burkhart of Traverse City – bet against the major utilities and officially started Cherryland. The co-op held its first meeting on July 27, 1938 in Traverse City, and Burkhart was named chairman.

By November of that year, the Cherryland team had submitted the application for their first Rural Electrification Act loan. The amount on the loan? $372,000 – equal to about $6.989 million today. With the loan approved, the co-op got to work building out its first electrical substation and 300 miles of line.

Speaking to Edson for his book, Alice Falck recalled the day that her parents’ Interlochen summer home got hooked up to electricity for the first time. For years, Falck’s family had been coming to northern Michigan for Interlochen’s National Music Camp (now Interlochen Arts Camp). The family hailed from Cincinnati, which, like other major cities at the time, already had electricity. Summers, for the Falcks, were a trip back in time to a more rustic way of life. Falck remembered watching Cherryland’s linemen putting up the utility poles and stringing the power lines, but she especially remembered the day the power came on.

“When it came time to flip the switch for our lights, you could hear the sound of them coming to life,” Falck told Edson. “Then the lights just sprayed across the room. It was so wonderful.”

While a flip of the light switch is effortless, the process of building out the Cherryland Electric network was anything but. One of the key interview subjects in Edson’s book was Lyle Johnson (pictured at left above), an early Cherryland lineman who worked for the co-op for 40 years. According to Johnson, installing utility line in northern Michigan was a challenging and often dangerous undertaking.

“In swampy areas we had to dynamite the poles into the ground,” Johnson told Edson. “Sometimes, the charge would blow the top of the pole off and we’d run like heck so it wouldn’t fall on us.”
Johnson also recalled an incident where a 40-foot pole he was climbing tumbled over while he was near the top of it, breaking his arm in three places and giving him a head injury. On a third occurrence, Bob Lambert, Cherryland’s very first lineman, accidentally dropped a hammer on Johnson’s head while working on a pole – an incident that prompted the line crews to start wearing hard hats for the first time.

“They decided it might be time to adopt some safety rules,” Johnson joked of the hammer incident. “Of course, being unconscious, I was the last to know.”

Bob Lambert would go on to become Cherryland’s second-ever chairman, a position he held from 1962 to 1976. Johnson became superintendent of line engineering and worked at Cherryland until 1986. Lambert passed away in 1999; his granddaughter works for the co-op today. Johnson passed away last November, at the age of 98.

Cherryland’s initial 300 miles of line served just 60 rural members, though the utility grew quickly from there. By the time World War II ended in 1945, the co-op served 2,000 members. As it became clear that rural electricity was a lucrative market, turf wars developed between Cherryland and utilities like Consumers Power (now Consumers Energy), with areas like Old Mission Peninsula becoming key battlegrounds.

Today, Cherryland Electric has more than 3,000 miles of power line and serves some 36,000 northern Michigan residential and commercial members. For Tony Anderson, who has served as the co-op’s general manager since 2003, Cherryland’s continued existence is a testament to the success of the Rural Electrification Act.

“The programs worked,” Anderson says. “What FDR envisioned in the 1930s is effective, viable, and working very well today, which has got to be rare for a government program over the last 80 years.”