North Dakota Oil Industry Photograph Collection (Fargo Forum)

Collection

Identifier: Photo 2039

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This photograph collection documents the oil industry in western North Dakota in the early 1950s. Most of the photographs apparently were taken by staff of the Fargo Forum, likely for a special edition and series of articles devoted to the oil industry that were published in the newspaper. Most are 8x10 in. prints and have been organized topically. The images feature drilling, pipe laying, rig raising, "shooting" explosives, surveying, clean-up, as well as photographs of housing developments and pre-oil days. There are several earlier images including the A.C. Townley well at Robinson, N.D. (1925) and the Glenfield oil well (1928). There is also a copy photographic print of the Drake Well of 1859. Oil fields at Poplar, Pine, Glendive, Rickey and Little Beaver are included, as well as photographs of oil wells and rigs. The Amerada Petroleum Corp. file includes images of its headquarters in Williston under construction, housing development, core samples, and a number of oil wells. Towns pictured include Bismarck, Bottineau, Fryburg, Ray, Tioga and Williston. The Bismarck file includes of the Saxvik School and the state capitol. At Williston there is an elevated view of new housing and a school. There are aerial view of Ray and Tioga. There is also a file of town street scenes, but the name of the towns are not given. Nils Halverson, LeRoy Hines, Joseph Rice and Lloyd Sveen are among the people included in various images.

Dates

Majority of material found within 1952 - 1954

Access

The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the Institute.

Copyrights

Copyrights to this collection remain with the creators.

History

Oil exploration in North Dakota dates back to the early years of the twentieth century. A photographic postcard postmarked in 1909 shows a wooden drilling rig, perhaps near Westhope or Lansford, N.D. There are several locations known to have used natural gas for heating homes. Near Williston, N.D. in 1916 a wildcat well was drilled by Pioneer Oil & gas. In 1925 drilling was done at Robinson, N.D. for oil and for which A.C. Townley was involved. In 1917 government surveyors discovered the Nesson Valley anticline in Williams County when mapping lignite beds. Such anticlines are the type of geologic structure in which most producing oil wells are located. In 1928 exploration work was conducted in 1928 by Transcontinental Oil Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This work was done likely due to the wildcatting of the Big Valley Oil Company which sank a well in the Nesson Valley. In 1937 Standard Oil Company of California leased land and conducted surveys in the state, expending over $100,000. In November 1937 drilling commenced by Manning and Martin Company of Denver. When the well was abandoned in 1938 it had gone to 10,281 feet. It was not until April 1951 that oil was discovered in North Dakota on the Clarence Iverson farm near Tioga by Amerada Oil Company. The discovery set off an oil boom in western part of the state. Oil production centered in Williams, McKenzie, Mountrail, billings, Bottineau and Burke counties. An oil refinery was constructed at Mandan, N.D. After a decline in oil production in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a resurgence in oil exploration in the later 1970s. Beginning in 1986 there has been a decline in drilling and oil production, but the Williston Basin remains under-explored.