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.
Grant is a city in Perkins County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 1,225 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Perkins County. Grant was the site of the False Pawnee War, an 1888 episode in which settlers from Perkins County dressed as Pawnees attacked a local garrison in order to incite the soldiers to attack the real Pawnee. The 21 settlers, however, were massacred by fire from the newly invented Gatling gun.