No business form is more deeply woven into the plains than the cooperative, in which the customers are also the owners and the profits return to the members rather than to distant shareholders. Grain elevators, farm-supply stores, rural electric lines, telephone systems and even some grocery stores operate on the model, a legacy of a self-reliant farming culture that learned to build what the market would not provide.

Owned by the Members It Serves

The cooperative arose from necessity. A scattered rural people, too few and too remote to attract the investment of outside firms, banded together to buy in bulk, market their grain, string their power lines and stock their shelves. What they built, they owned in common, and the annual meeting and patronage dividend became fixtures of plains life.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• In a cooperative, the customers are also the owners.
• Elevators, farm supply, electricity and phone service run on the model.
• Profits return to members as patronage dividends.

The model has proven remarkably durable, adapting from the horse-and-wagon era to the age of shuttle trains and fiber optics. The almanac counts the cooperative among the plains' great social inventions — an economy that main street built and main street still owns.