In the 1930s, investor-owned utilities did not consider it profitable to extend electric lines to sparsely populated parts of the Texas Hill Country, leaving rural residents to live an old-fashioned, labor-intensive lifestyle. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration to encourage the formation of rural electric cooperatives. After his election to U.S. Congress in 1937, Lyndon B. Johnson worked with representatives from Blanco, Burnet, Gillespie, Hays, and Llano counties to incorporate Pedernales Electric Cooperative on May 19, 1938. When the cooperative could not meet the population density required for a Rural Electrification Administration loan, Johnson sought a waiver from President Franklin D. Roosevelt and succeeded. On September 27, 1938, the cooperative received a loan of about $1.3 million to extend 1,800 miles of line to nearly 3,000 families. Electrification of the Hill Country became a backbone for opportunity in Central Texas, supporting industrial development in what became one of the fastest-growing regions in America, and Pedernales Electric Cooperative later became the largest distribution electric cooperative in the United States.