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.
Wedderburn is an unincorporated coastal community in Curry County, Oregon, United States. It is located across the mouth of Rogue River from Gold Beach, on U.S. Route 101. The Isaac Lee Patterson Bridge connects Wedderburn with Gold Beach. Wedderburn was founded by R. D. Hume, a prominent local businessman in the fishing industry, who named the community after the home of his ancestors, Wedderburn Castle in Scotland. Wedderburn post office was established in 1895. Wedderburn was originally a company town for Hume's salmon fishing monopoly, and besides his fishing fleet, he ran Wedderburn's cannery, store, race track and cold storage plant. Hume had settled at the mouth of the Rogue in 1876, and he eventually owned all the land on both banks of the river from the Pacific Ocean to the head of the .