Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Elizabethtown is a village in Hardin County, Illinois, along the Ohio River. The population was 348 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Hardin County. It the location of the Rose Hotel, an Illinois state historic site built about 1830.