Rural electrification was a significant achievement for Congressman Johnson, and one he used in his 1941 Senate campaign. It made a big difference in people’s lives in the Hill Country. Robert Caro describes pre-electrification life:

“No radio; no movies; limited reading—little diversion between the hard day just past and the hard day just ahead. ‘Living was just drudgery then,’ says Carroll Smith of Blanco. No lights. No plumbing. Nothing. Just living on the edge of starvation. That was farm life for us…’”

—Caro. Robert A.  The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1: The Path to Power. New York: Vintage Books, 1990, p. 513.

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