Looking back at 70 years of oil in North Dakota
In April 1951, the North Dakota landscape changed forever with the discovery of oil. We look back at the discovery through the Herald archive and other sources.
A collage of headlines from 1951 appeared in the April 3, 1952 edition of the Williston Herald, looking back at the discovery of oil in North Dakota.
A photo published April 3, 1952 in the Williston Herald under the headline, “A Prairie Spiderweb,” gave readers a look upward into the structu…
The Bakken is the oil and gas field most people think of when they talk about oil production in the region. But it was born first out of the M…
A.R. Dennison, Tulsa, vice president of Amerada Petroleum Corporation and chief geologist of the company’s wide-spread oil explorations on the…
The Williston Herald reported the flow of oil at the Clarence Iverson No. 1 well in Tioga on April 5, 1951. It was the first discovery of oil …
The front page from April 9, 1951, announced that the Clarence Iverson No. 1 well in Tioga had been plugged for testing.
A photo from the Williston Herald in April 1951 showed readers how diamonds were used in industry. The original caption reads: This comely tit…
The front page from Sept. 7, 1951, announces that a second well, Bakken No. 1, struck oil.
An undated photo shows Math Iverson, right, a Tioga farmer, and his wife, in front of their oil well. Iverson’s brother owned the land where t…
If a flow of gas through your meter was reading like the gauage at the Amerada wildcat you probably would call the company for correction. C.H…
These two photos appeared on the same day in the Williston Herald, with the first showing the site of the Bakken No. 1 test well, Amerada’s se…
Montana and North Dakota have more than 160 years of oil and gas history. The first recorded mention of oil and gas in Montana goes back to 18…