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.
Eldon is a city in Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 998 at the 2000 census. Eldon is the site of the small Carpenter Gothic style house that has come to be known as the American Gothic House because Grant Wood used it for the background in his famous 1930 painting American Gothic. Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold (who was born in nearby Ottumwa) opened Roseanne and Tom's Big Food Diner, specializing in loosemeat sandwiches (similar to the specialty of the Lanford Lunch Box, which was owned by the Connor family on the ABC sitcom Roseanne), in Eldon. The restaurant was short-lived, operating from March 13, 1993, until 1995. (The couple divorced in 1994.)