West Oregon Electric Cooperative was created in 1944, carved out of remote rural areas that the encircling for-profit utilities did not wish to take on due to the excessive expense for installation and maintenance.
The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created in 1935 to get electricity to rural Americans. The REA program offered low-interest federal loans to power companies willing to deliver electricity to rural communities. Most private power companies would not take advantage of the loans offered by the federal government, so rural communities organized cooperatively to get electricity.
In 1936, Congress created the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), formerly the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), offering low-interest federal loans directly to rural people, often through cooperatives. Today, the use of low-interest, long-term loans continues. This model ensures that cooperative members 10, 20, 30 years down the line will be paying for the equipment as they use it, instead of a large, insupportable payment coming due at the time of repair, maintenance, or replacement of a big-ticket piece of equipment.
Sources: WOEC website and The Not-For-Profit Difference, Ruralite, January 2018 (PDF)