Grand Valley Power: In the Beginning
GRAND JUNCTION, COLO. - (August 12, 2026) Grand Valley Power is fortunate. Tucked away in its sparse archive are a few black and white photos, the very first GVP annual report likely duplicated for members on a mimeograph machine, and an 11-page typed essay written by I.W. Patterson. Together, these historical documents tell the tale of Colorado’s oldest electric cooperative.
Because of them, we can weave together a solid account of how Grand Valley Rural Power Lines, Inc. came to be. This month, Grand Valley Power turns 90. And thanks to Patterson, Grand Valley Power’s general manager from 1936 to 1942, we can look back today on how Grand Valley Power came about “In the Beginning.”
“Early in 1936, I learned that the REA Federal Program had been promoted by Congress,” Patterson wrote in his essay. Patterson, himself a farmer, owned an electric shop in Fruita. He knew as well as anyone the conveniences enjoyed by those with electricity and wanted to spread that joy to the rural parts of Mesa County, but no for-profit utility cared to spend
the money to stretch its infrastructure so far for so little revenue.
So, when Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act, enabling rural residents to form cooperatives and take loans to pay for the installation of electrical distribution systems to their farms, Patterson and a few Fruita farmers organized. “At that time, we figured that $5 per member would be sufficient to finance the project.” On August 12, 1936, they incorporated Grand Valley Rural Power Lines, Inc. as a Colorado corporation.
The biggest challenge was convincing their fellow farmers that the project would happen. “This work was very discouraging. It was difficult to explain to the farmers that there was a possibility of getting highline electric service. They just didn’t believe it.”
Even after the group had collected applications and $5 fees from 600 members, constructing the first lines was no small feat. “We planned a 4,800-volt distribution system, three substations in the valley fed by the 11,000-volt transmission circuit that the Public Service Company had at Fruita.” In fact, the cooperative didn’t have enough money to operate, so Patterson postponed his own salary and arranged credit at local businesses, leveraging personal notes for a company vehicle, an adding machine, and a typewriter. He employed a bookkeeper and an attorney.
Grand Valley Power energized the first lines on September 17, 1937. Lights brightened 250 homes in the valley. After this, it became easier for rural residents to understand that they could have electricity, and people from Fruitvale and Orchard Mesa to Collbran and De Beque asked that lines be extended to their farms.
“Building these lines and giving electric service to rural people for the first time has many compensations,” Patterson wrote. “I will never forget the thrill I received on Christmas Eve when we were energizing a section of line east of Clifton. I don’t remember the name, but it was a white framed house, and those folks had just wired their home and were waiting. They had a little girl about 10 or 11 years old who had a string of Christmas tree lights on the tree and came out when we set the meter and wanted to know if her lights would burn that night. We told her if she would go in the house, she’d probably see and just as she went in the door we threw the switch. When she came back out, she was jumping about four feet high or so it seemed to me.”
Read more about Grand Valley Power's history.
90 Years of
Grand Valley Power History
