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.
Wheatcroft is a city in Webster County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 173 at the 2000 census. Wheatcroft, a coal town with post office, is on KY 109 and the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad, 8 1/2 miles west of Dixon. It was probably named for Irving Horace Wheatcroft, an Englishman, who in 1899 laid out and founded the town on land acquired from Elijah Cullen, He opened one or more area coal mines, and built the Kentucky Western Railway from nearby Blackford to Dixon. The Wheatcroft post office was established on September 10, 1900, with A.S. Logsdon, postmaster, and the town was incorporated in 1902.