3/4/2011:
The current state of the oil fields is a big topic in North Dakota. However, the oil boom traces it roots back to the first few decades of the 1900s. At least 23 attempts at discovering oil were made between 1924 and 1951. Plans for drilling a well on the Clarence Iverson farm south of Tioga were developed in 1946, and drilling began in the summer of 1950.
If you’re familiar with your oil history, you may know what came next: the Clarence Iverson project became the discovery well of the Williston Basin when in 1951, oil was recovered there. A new industry formed, changing that area forever. By May of that year, thirty million acres of North Dakota were under lease by oil corporations.
On this date in 1965, The Williston Herald announced that the federal government would be paying for 180 men to get training as oil field workers at a special school at the University of North Dakota Center in Williston. It was called a “roughneck” school, an aptly-named program that would prepare individuals for working on an oil rig. The program fell under the Manpower Development and Training Act, which Kennedy signed into effect in 1962. It authorized a three-year program aimed at retraining workers displaced by new technology. Officials hoped to have sixty men in training within the month. The course would consist of 72 hours of classroom work, and 216 hours of field work, including setting up, operating and tearing down an oil drilling rig on the Williston campus. It was open to trainees from other oil states as well as North Dakota, which was especially good news for those seeking work in the oil fields of surrounding states, who may not have had the experience.
Certainly, the oil booms of the state have developed their own interesting chapter in history books. It has allowed a new wild west into our state’s history…roughnecks and all.
Dakota Datebook written by Sarah Walker
Sources:
http://www.rockinthebakken.com/OilInWilliston.aspx?ID=91
The Williston Herald, March 4, 1965, p1