In a country characterized by antiquated systems for regulating how electricity is produced and transported to homes and businesses, one utility in Arizona may be the most outdated. In 1903, almost a decade before Arizona became a state, a group of landowners around Phoenix secured a federal loan for a dam on the Salt River. The dam collected water to irrigate farms and produce hydroelectric power to run irrigation pumps. The landowners created the Salt River Project Association to govern the operation of the dam, and gave each landowner a vote for every acre of land they owned.

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