MANNFORD — Each year, the American Public Power Association (APPA) sets aside the first full week in October to recognize the many benefits that public power utilities provide to homes, businesses, and communities all across the country.
Public power is comprised of more than 2,000 publicly owned, publicly controlled electric utilities in the United States, like the one right here in Mannford. Collectively, these utilities provide abundant, reliable and competitively priced electricity to over 54 million Americans in 49 states. They are all not-for-profit and community focused, existing to meet the needs of their customer-owners while providing all the benefits that can only be found in a public power community.
But as Public Power Week 2025 arrives (October 5 through 11), many may be wondering about Mannford’s public power history. Here is a short synopsis … The story of Mannford’s powerful electric history is long and eventful. It involved tremendous foresight on the part of city leaders, important and historic votes by Mannford citizens, major moves, and a lengthy list of partners that have helped the city keep the lights on for a century or more.
Although electricity may have been produced in or around Mannford before 1925, it was in May of that year when the Cimarron Light & Power Company was granted a 25-year license to provide power to the city. That agreement was made possible through a vote of the citizens when they gave their approval to city ordinance #36. In doing so, Mannford was on the path to a powerful new future.
That vote came at a time when the entire state of Oklahoma was embracing electricity. According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, only four percent of the state had electricity in 1920, but within 10 years, the majority of the state’s cities were electrified. In Mannford, the decade of the 1930s was also marked by industrial growth. Throughout that period, two cotton gins, eight oil and gas companies and a pipeline company all called Mannford home.
With the arrival of 1949, the 25-year agreement with Cimarron Light & Power was running out and the city was searching for another provider to power Mannford’s future. Since that agreement had begun in the 1920s, electricity had grown from just a luxury that few could afford to become a vital component of everyday life. Thus, it was important for the community to move forward with reliable and abundant electricity service. Before the year ended, Mannford granted a 25-year electric franchise to Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) to meet the city’s needs well into the future.
With a secure plan for its electric future, the community was set for continued growth and development. However, in 1958, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began to develop plans for Keystone Dam and Lake, which would flood the existing townsite. In response, Mannford citizens again went to the polls to make a key decision about the town’s future.
In June of 1959, they approved moving the entire townsite roughly seven miles to the southeast, which would place it just off the shoreline of the new lake. Soon after, plans were developed to complete this move, including plans for the new townsite’s electric distribution system.
In June 1962, while the lengthy, multi-year moving process was still underway, city leaders worked out an agreement with PSO that would allow Mannford to acquire that new electric distribution system, within the corporate limits of the new town, after a period of two years. It was another watershed moment for Mannford, requiring another vote. On March 17, 1964, citizens voted 91 to 32 in favor of purchasing the system. At the same time, they also approved leasing it back to the Mannford Public Works Authority. In a sense, Mannford’s public power legacy began with these votes and the citizens have enjoyed the benefits of public power ever since.
The vote and its significance were preserved in a New Mannford News article from March 19, 1964, which stated in part: “This overwhelming majority vote will probably put Mannford in the position of being one of a very few towns in Oklahoma that own all its own electric utilities. Revenues from all these should enable Mannford to provide all of its operating expenses plus some of the ‘extras’ that most small towns cannot afford.”
By this time, the move to the relocated Mannford had been completed, and the community was settling into a new era, with new opportunities for business and industry, but a continued need for abundant and reliable electricity to power it all. In November 1974, the PSO agreement was ending, and city leaders approved a new agreement with Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E) to deliver wholesale electricity to the city-owned distribution system. From that point, the Mannford Public Works Authority delivered it to end-users.
Roughly three decades passed before the next milestone moment in Mannford’s electricity legacy. With the OG&E agreement set to expire in March 2003, city leaders reviewed several options beforesettlingontheGrand River Dam Authority – another public power utility – to serve as its new wholesale supplier. With a new substation in place to help facilitate the move, the official switchover to GRDA electricity took place during a special ceremony on March 31, 2003.
Another newspaper, the Mannford Eagle, shared the news about the moment and the new relationship with GRDA: “In 10 years or less, the new $650,000 substation on Farrow Road will be owned by the city if the then-board of trustees chooses to take on the responsibilities of it … What’s so nice about this union between the city and GRDA is that the substation comes at no cost to the city … Mannford will pay for it over the next 10 years, but the rate reduction achieved from acquiring electrical service from GRDA will not only pay for the substation but allow for new cash reserves for future upgrades, repairs and expansion of the current infrastructure.”
Today, Mannford Public Works Authority continues to buy wholesale GRDA electricity and then resell it to end users in Mannford, over the electric distribution system citizens had the foresight to purchase all those years ago. Public power is still central to Mannford’s electricity history, carrying on the legacy that citizens established 60 years ago.