Long before Maricopa became one of Arizona’s fast-growing cities, Electrical District No. 3 was created to bring electricity to rural parts of Pinal County that private utilities were not eager to serve, according to InMaricopa.
Arizona lawmakers passed an Electrical District Act in 1922 to help agricultural communities secure power. Four years later, on Jan. 5, 1926, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors finalized ED3’s formation, setting its boundaries at about 87,000 acres.
The district’s early work focused on practical needs. Electricity helped run irrigation pumps for farmers and supplied power to homes and small businesses in an area where water pumping was essential to agriculture.
ED3 expanded in 1930, when power lines reached Maricopa and western Casa Grande. About 60 workers built the extension lines and a substation 18 miles south of Maricopa, at an estimated cost of $500,000. The lines also served Electrical District No. 4, which covered Picacho, Eloy and Toltec.
As Maricopa grew, ED3 kept adapting. By 1961, after an agreement to buy electrical facilities from Arizona Public Service, the district owned its transmission and distribution system within its service area. Later, as the city’s population rose from about 1,000 in 2002 to more than 51,000 in 2008, ED3 doubled its substations and added hundreds of miles of overhead and underground power lines, according to InMaricopa.
