News

Remembering the oil boom

By Scott Wagar

03/06/2012

Editor’s Note: This week, the Bottineau Courant will complete the second article of a two part series on the history of discovering oil in Bottineau County. This article tells of the first oil strike in the county and the impact on the town where oil was found.

In late October of 1952, Bottineau County was buzzing with activity. Bottineau’s State Theater was showing the romantic comedy movie, “She worked her way through college,” starring Virginia Mayo, Ronald Reagan and Gene Nelson with a theater ticket price at $1 per seat. The CR Gleason Motor Company was advertising in the local newspaper about its “New Buick Super Fordoor,” while at the same time having a sale on such used cars as a 1949 Chevrolet Tudor for $1,025, and a 1937 Ford Fordoor for $75. In Upham, the townspeople were preparing for a weekend dance with the Little German Band performing at the Upham Legion Hall; and all the county citizens were discussing the up and coming November election and how they were going to vote on whether or not prohibition should be voted back into law, making liquor illegal once again in the county.

In Westhope, the discussion wasn’t about movies, cars, dances or prohibition; it was about oil being discovered in the Pascar Well just over the Canadian border.

“Oil interest in Bottineau County rose to a new high this week as reports of an oil strike at the Pascar Oil Co. well across the Canadian border, nine miles north of Westhope, were circulating Tuesday morning,” stated the Bottineau Courant on October 22, 1952.

“According to reports here, the Pascar strike was made in drill stem tests Tuesday morning and recovered 560 feet of oil accompanied by strong gas and no water.

The fact that no water was present was most encouraging as earlier wells in this vicinity had been handicapped by excessive water.

“The find in the Pascar Oil Co. well had great significance because of its proximity to the two new sites for wildcat wells to be drilled on this side of the border,” the Bottineau Courant continued to state in the Pascar Oil discovery.

One of the wells the county newspaper wrote about was the Berentson Well No. 1 where oil was discovered soon after the Oct. 22 publication of the Pascar Well, but fell somewhat short due to water at one of the formations.

“Completion of the Berentson No. 1 Well near Westhope will get underway this week in what is expected to be Bottineau County’s first producing oil well. The Berentson Well, which is considered by oilmen as the key to development in this area, has been drilled and tested into the Madison formation, but will be cemented back and developed at the Charles formation. This is the first North Dakota well to be developed at this formation. The well is being cased to the 3500 foot level,” stated the Bottineau Courant a few weeks after it published the Pascar story.

“Oil was first discovered in the Berentson Well at the 3,246-55 foot level, which was believed to be the Spearfish sandstone. After the original find, the well was drilled deeper and a more promising zone was found in the Charles formation at the 3,315 to 3,345 foot level. Wishing to explore still deeper, and especially the Madison formation from which the Pascar Well is producing and from which the Tioga area are producing, the Berentson Well was drilled at 3,633 feet. The top of the Madison formation produced only water in the Berentson Well so it was decided to cement it back up and develop the Charles zone.

In early December of 1952, the Berentson Well exploded to the surface of the earth from the gas pressure it was under in its formation, creating a stream of black gold, which in turn brought a stream of county residents out to the site to see the first oil well in Bottineau County history.

“The well came in about midnight one night in December, and before morning everyone in Bottineau County had heard of the oil strike at Westhope, and by the next day probably everybody in the county had made a trip out to see the well,” stated the Bottineau Courant.

The Berentson Well was not a very productive well, but soon, one well after another in the Westhope area began striking oil with good quality oil, causing the first oil boom in Bottineau County.

With the first oil strikes in the county, difficult times also came with the increase of oil workers and local development in Westhope. The Dec. 3, 1952, the Courant had a front page headline which stated, “Westhope finds problems come with oil discovery.”

“The first to feel the effects of an oil development naturally is the immediate area of the oil find. Such is the case at Westhope, where, thrilled with the findings of oil at the outskirts of the city, folks are beginning to realize that problems comes hand-in-hand with oil development,” the Courant stated. “Westhope had enjoyed the immediate attention of the oilmen in their search for oil in this area. Centered in what oilmen call the most likely spot for oil development in this area. Westhope has had an influx of oilmen for a couple years now. First it started with oilmen seeking leases.

Then came the research groups, the seismographers, and later the drillers. Now that oil has been found, the oil fever has reached a new high. More people are coming in; more rigs are expected. In any community this poses many problems.

“Westhope is better prepared to meet the new problems. Their planning for the future began many years ago, not because they expected oil, but rather, they expected their community to grow anyway,” the Courant added. “They modernized their city, adding a new and extensive waterworks. This answers one of the immediate problems of handling increased population. Westhope can expand their sewer and water system to meet future demands. On this, they were one step ahead of which is now thrown upon them.”

The newspaper also spoke about the brand new school in Westhope, which was constructed after a fire burned  its former school down in 1951. The article mentioned how the city planners decided to increase the size of the new school to prepare for the town’s future, which paid off for Westhope when oil was discovered.

“Increased enrollment is reflected as a result of oil developments in the community. We hear that the new school is already reaching its limits in enrollment,” the Courant wrote. “However, true this may be, Westhope is far better off now than they were two years ago, when their school was wiped out overnight. They planned for the future in their school system and their planning is paying out.”

The Courant stated, too, that the people of Westhope had an open mind about what the oil fields could bring to their town. “The general opinion seems to be ‘We want to see what comes out of this thing.’

Basically, this seems the best principal to meet such a situation.

Although the first oil boom in Bottineau County brought a large number of people into the county with a great deal of activity, eventually the oil activity settled down, oil workers left and populations decreased.

With the new technology of hydraulic fracing in the oil industry, and the opportunity to reach oil formation the industry wasn’t able to drill to in the past, a second oil boom appears to be on the horizon for Bottineau County. From oil companies gathering land leases, to researchers, seismographers and drillers, the county has begin to see history repeat itself.

What is to come next is somewhat unknown, but oil workers are coming back into the county with larger numbers of them each new year, which only means a new chapter in the county’s oil history has started, and perhaps, the county’s second oil boom in its chronicle of oil discovery.