County agricultural extension agents show up again and again in the American rural electrification story. One that stands out is Wallace Landry in Clark County, Wisconsin.

That’s why he called a meeting when a power company started building a spite line near Greenwood and spreading the propaganda that Clark Electric would never get off the ground. A number of farmers revealed that night that the power company had offered to rebate their $5 co-op membership fee ($113 today).

Clark Electric was incorporated on April 1, 1937, and elected Landry, one of the incorporaters, secretary-treasurer at its first annual meeting 11 days later. That June, two other electric co-ops in the county sold their assets to Clark Electric, reasoning that one large system would have a better chance at success than three small ones. Landry was at the center of that decision, because he knew the most about what REA was looking for in its borrowers.

Almost immediately, Clark Electric faced the thorny issue of finding a power supplier in a state where the investor-owned utilities saw co-ops as intruders on their turf. Moments in Time described the situation this way: “…it became apparent the power company strategy was to strangle young co-ops to death with exorbitant wholesale rates.”

Clark Electric discussed with REA the idea of building its own power plant, and the federal agency put $150,000 behind the project. But then Clark Electric and eight other co-ops in northwestern Wisconsin turned their attention to a proposal to band together to form the first generation and transmission co-op in the nation and build a diesel plant near Chippewa Falls. Again, the Clark County co-op turned to Landry, electing him as its representative on the Wisconsin Power Cooperative’s board of directors.

Locking down power supply “speedily eliminated the log jam that had been blocking progress toward actual electrification of the farms for many months,” Moments in Time explains. “In March 1937, REA announced approval of a $700,000 loan for the ‘Clark project.’ This was the biggest single loan that had been authorized by REA up to that time."

The first section of the co-op’s distribution system was energized on March 22, 1938, two weeks after the Chippewa plant went into operation.

Landry was the point man for another power supply initiative a little over four years later. Wisconsin Power Cooperative (WPC) had merged with Tri-State Power Cooperative, and he was asked to represent Clark Electric on the joint board of directors. Tri-State served member distribution systems in southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa, and operated a steam plant in Genoa, on the banks of the Mississippi River south of LaCrosse. This plant and WPC’s Chippewa plant were linked by a transmission line.