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.
Lowake is an unincorporated community in northwestern Concho County, Texas, United States, along the Concho River. It lies along FM 381 northern of the town of Paint Rock, the county seat of Concho County. Its elevation is 1,752 feet (534 m). Although Lowake is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 76855; the post office was established in 1909. Founded in 1909 midway between Miles and Paint Rock, Lowake was named for local farmers named Lowe and Schlake, upon whose land the community was built. Lowake's school was merged with that of Paint Rock in the 1950s. Despite its small size, Lowake was well known in the 1960s as the site of a famous steakhouse. (A steakhouse was still in operation in early 2010. ) There were at least two steakhouses, one of which was the "Lowake Inn", a restaurant and gathering place for locals in this small community. Travelers to Lowake not only came by road. There was also a nearby airstrip where pilots of small aircraft could come and go, within easy walking distance of the Inn.