West Central Electric Cooperative was incorporated over 65 years ago, in November of 1949, to bring electrical power to the more sparsely populated areas of Central South Dakota. Before the Cooperative was formed, people living in these isolated areas could not utilize the convenience of the modern-day electrical appliances they saw in magazines and catalogs. Only if they went to town could they see how they operated. To some of the people living in these areas this was unacceptable. Because the rural areas would not return a profit for a commercial power company, the idea of forming a cooperative was born.

Today, West Central Electric Cooperative, Inc. carries on the tradition of providing affordable electrical power to even the more remote areas, with the addition of the most modern equipment available to provide reliability. West Central serves electrical power to over 3,701 members located in fifteen towns throughout five counties in the central part of South Dakota. The Cooperative maintains approximately 4,021 miles of line in an area of more than 7,000 square miles, much of which is to serve developments outside city limits, farm houses, barns and wells.