In November 1947, the RE Magazine cover featured an image of a Virginia turkey farm. At the time, the Rural Electrification Administration and NRECA were keeping up a constant drumbeat promoting farm electrification.

“Rural electrification has a major role in producing the Thanksgiving turkey,” the article noted. During World War II, which was still very much on Americans’ minds, turkeys “were shipped to the United States forces all over the world so the men and women in the service could share the traditional meal.”

The article focused on Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative’s working partnership with local producers and then cited similar relationships in eight other states. Dayton, Virginia-based Shenandoah Valley Electric supplied power to farms that raised 1.5 million turkeys over the prior two years, part of a $30-million poultry industry in Rockingham County.

Most of the co-op-powered production was concentrated in an area of the county known as Brock’s Gap, along the north fork of the Shenandoah River. Electricity for pumping agricultural water allowed growers to handle large, profitable flocks.

Brock’s Gap was a model for other parts of the U.S.

“Electrified farms can raise turkeys on a profitable basis where the kerosene oil lamp, the hand pump and the old-time brooder represented not only labor drudgery, but their use involved fire danger with heavy financial loss.” 

Flood lights equipped with reflectors and timer switches roused the turkeys before daylight on those Brock’s Gap farms.

“The goal is bumper crops of turkey eggs, and the electrical equipment pays for itself many times over.”

Rockingham County growers organized a marketing co-op to dress the birds and then freeze them for shipping later. Shenandoah Electric provided power to that co-op’s building. 

Texas was another state that had “huge turkey farms.” The article named three co-ops with big turkey farm loads: Erath Electric in Stephenville, DeWitt County Electric in Cuero and Victoria County Electric in Victoria.

Big operations on co-op lines were also found in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Georgia, the Carolinas and Missouri, according to the article. Today, Minnesota is the largest turkey producing state, and North Carolina and Missouri are in the top five.

In the summer and fall of 1947, the National Turkey Federation, which is still promoting “America’s bird” today, was pushing turkey steaks as “a new delicacy for the dinner table.” And Licking Rural Electrification in Utica, Ohio, served Barrick-Schroer Turkey Farm, where there were “160,000 to 200,000 turkey steaks running around in the form of 5,000 turkeys.”