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.
Great Cacapon is an unincorporated hamlet in Morgan County in the U.S. state of West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. The ZCTA for Great Cacapon's ZIP Code had a population of 1,379 at the 2000 census. Great Cacapon takes its name from the Cacapon River which empties into the Potomac River to the town's east. It was originally known as Cacapon Depot on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad mainline when a post office was established here in 1848. In 1876, its name was changed to Great Cacapon to differentiate it from Little Cacapon which was also on the B&O mainline. It lies four miles down Cacapon Mountain from the Panorama Overlook along Cacapon Road west of Berkeley Springs.