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.
Morse Mill is an unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Missouri, United States. It is located about five miles northwest of Hillsboro. The community is named after John H. Morse, who settled here in 1847. Built in the early 1870s, the Morse homestead was a three-story frame house with a New Orleans-style balcony on the second floor. The house was used as a motel in the Roaring 20's, known as Morse Mill Hotel. At this hotel is where Bertha Gifford killed her first known victim. There is an abandoned mill dam on the Big River here.