Job loss in manufacturing: Economic Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Labor statistics; Robert E. Scott, “Manufacturing Job Loss,” Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief #402, August 11, 2015.
Job loss in construction: Christopher J. Goodman and Steven M. Mance, “Employment Loss and the 2007–09 Recession: An Overview,” Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics (April 2011): 5.
CHAPTER 4: TOM STAKES
Interviews: Tom Stakes, Ward Koeser, Joshua Stansbury
20 new people arrived to town every day: Ruth Moon, “Love Isn’t Easy in Man Camp Ministry,” Christianity Today 56 (October 2012):54.
Cities with 20 percent unemployment: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rate in Yuma County, AZ and El Centro, CA, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
labor market had lost 8.8 million jobs: Christopher J. Goodman and Steven M. Mance, “Employment Loss and the 2007–09 Recession: An Overview,” Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics (April 2011): 3.
14 million people were unemployed: Bureau of Labor Statistics News Release, “The Employment Situation—September 2011,” October 7, 2011.
4 million people had lost their homes: CoreLogic,” CoreLogic® Reports 57,000 Completed Foreclosures in September,” October 31, 2012.
7 million Americans slid into poverty: By the end of 2008, the poverty rate was 39.1 million: Alemayehu Bishaw and Trudi J. Renwick, “Poverty: 2007 and 2008,” American Community Survey Reports (September 2009), accessed at https://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/acsbr08-1.pdf. In the beginning of 2011, poverty rate was 46.2 million: Alemayehu Bishaw, “Poverty: 2010 and 2011,” American Community Survey Reports (September 2012).
three-quarters of those 8.8 million jobs lost … were lost by men: Hanna Rosin, “The End of Men,” The Atlantic (July/August 2010).
North Dakota homeless numbers: Michael Carbone, Carol Cohen, “The Tipping Point,” the North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People and the Rural Community Assistance Corportation, 2013; North Dakota Interagency Council on Homelessness, “Housing Homeless,” October 1, 2008; “Point-in-Time Summary for ND,” North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People, January 23, 2013.
CHAPTER 5: CHELSEA NIEHAUS
Interviews: Chelsea Niehaus, Jacob Klipsch
54,000 passengers who rode this overnight train: Curt Brown, “Life in the Boom: Oil Riches Call … and Family Life Back Home Waits,” (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, January 14, 2014.
Lake Sakakawea’s coastline: Stephen Regenold, “Under Sail, Under Wraps,” The New York Times, September 22, 2006.
CHAPTER 7: CINDY MARCHELLO
Interviews: Cindy Marchello, Scott Morgan
25,000 people in man camps: An estimate from Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s office, reported by Jenny Michael, “Western N.D. Crime Not Disproportionate to Population,” Bismarck Tribune, July 30, 2013.
Lady Roughnecks in North Dakota Man-Camps: CNN Money, November 1 2011.
85 percent of oil industry jobs are held by men: IHS Global Inc., “Minority and Female Employment in the Oil & Gas and Petrochemical Industries,” prepared for American Petroleum Institute (March 2014): 20.
women hold fewer than 2 percent of the jobs: Ibid., p. 25.
CHAPTER 8: PASTOR JAY REINKE
Interviews: Jay Reinke, Gloria Cox
80 percent of the first homesteaders who relocated: Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (New York: First Mariner Books, 1993), p. 8.
one church for every 400 people: Association of Religion Data Archives, “State Membership Report: North Dakota” (2010), data collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.
hardly keep new trucks on the lot: E. J. Schultz, “Williston: The Town the Recession Forgot,” Ad Age, October 31, 2011.
average wage in Williston: James MacPherson, “N.D. Oil Boom Town Reaping Prosperity, Problems,” Associated Press, May 22, 2012.
taxpayers reporting a $1 million-plus income: Kathy Strombeck, a research analyst at the North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner, email communication, March 7, 2016.
Reinke’s newspaper column: Jay Reinke, “Now Is a Time to Hope,” Williston Herald, December 2, 2011.
CHAPTER 9: WILLISTON
Interviews: Chuck Wilder
1887 push: Elwyn Robinson, History of North Dakota (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), p. 142.
10 percent down and seven years to pay the balance: Ibid., p. 131.
land under the 1862 Homestead Act: D. Jerome Tweton, “Getting and Living on a Homestead,” North Dakota Studies.
Quote from the railroad land commissioner: Quoted in Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 132.
Harper’s Monthly 1888 advertisement: Word and Picture Story of Williston and Area Since 1887: 75th Anniversary & Diamond Jubilee (Bismarck, North Dakota: Conrad Publishing Company, 1962).
population … an increase of more than 1,000 percent: Ibid., p. 134.
Lumber … hauled from 50 miles away: John Hudson, “Frontier Housing in North Dakota,” in Janet Daley Lysengen and Ann M. Rathke, eds., The Centennial Anthology of North Dakota History: Journal of the Northern Plains (Bismarck: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1996), p. 136.
townships … more than 90 percent Norwegian: Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 157.
76,000 Lutherans were living in North Dakota: Ibid., p. 538.
Living conditions of early settlers: Ibid., p. 159.
Elwyn Robinson quote: Ibid., p. 168.
A blizzard in 1887: Valerie Sherer Mathes, “Theodore Roosevelt as a Naturalist and Bad Lands Rancher,” in Lysengen and Rathke, Centennial Anthology of North Dakota History, p. 174.
another blizzard killed nearly 100 people: Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 168.
In 1889, a severe drought: Harold E. Briggs, “The Great Dakota Boom, 1879–1888,” in Lysengen and Rathke, Centennial Anthology of North Dakota History, p. 125.
a typhoid epidemic nearly wiped out: “Grand Forks Epidemic,” The Winnipeg Tribune, January 29, 1894, p. 5.
Life for women pioneers: Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 169.
Thousands of pioneers left: Ibid., p. 135.
4 million acres of land were held by speculators: Ibid., p. 150.
Army officer wrote to his wife: Quoted in ibid., p. 131.
Robinson quote: Ibid., pp. 135.
Mary Dodge Woodward quote: Quoted in ibid., p. 170.
Robinson quote: Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 173.
a young man from Virginia: Warren A. Henke, “Imagery, Immigration, and the Myth of North Dakota: The First Quarter Century,” in Lysengen and Rathke, Centennial Anthology of North Dakota History, p. 192.
Theodore Roosevelt quote: Mathes, “Theodore Roosevelt as a Naturalist and Bad Lands Rancher,” in Lysengen and Rathke, Centennial Anthology of North Dakota History, p. 177.
the most wildlife refuges of any state in the country: National Park Service, “Theodore Roosevelt and Conservation,” at http://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm.
Bismarck population growth: “Bismarck–Burleigh County Actual & Projected Population 1920–2040,” U.S. Census Bureau and Community Development Department.
The population of urban areas in the state grew: “Urban and Rural Population for the U.S. and All States: 1900–2000,” The State Data Center of Iowa, U.S. Census Bureau.
Building boom in the 1920s: Richard Rubin, “Not Far from Forsaken,” The New York Times Magazine, April 9, 2006.
Average rainfall and record temperatures: Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 398.
North Dakota per capita income in 1930s: Ibid., p. 400.
one-third of North Dakota’s families lost their farms: Ibid.
80,000 people fled … and nearly half of the population lived on government relief: Ibid., p. 401.
Slope County … lost 29 percent of its population: Ibid.
population pea
ked at 680,845: Rubin, “Not Far from Forsaken.”
More income from agriculture and less from manufacturing: Robinson, History of North Dakota, p. 451.
highest numbers of nuclear warheads: “50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons,” The Brookings Institution, 1998.
Norris quote: Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (New York: First Mariner Books, 1993), p. ix.
CHAPTER 10: IT TAKES A BOOM
Interviews: Cindy Marchello, Mana Kula, Scott Morgan, Curtis Kenney, Matthew Anderson, Tatum O’Brien Lindbo
Jobs … began to decline in the mid-1980s: Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics Survey,” 1980–2016.
The boom coincided with the withdrawal: “Obama: U.S. to Withdraw Most Iraq Troops by August 2010,” CNN, February 27, 2009.
Bakken region “the next deployment”: Curt Brown, “Life in the Boom: Battlefield to Oil Field,” (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, January 14, 2014.
ShaleNet, a $20 million federally funded program: ShaleNET, “About ShaleNet,” accessed at https://www.shalenet.org/about.
Only 12 percent of oil and gas workers in Williston had a bachelor’s degree or higher: “Williston’s WIB’s Beginning of Quarter Employment: Counts by Worker Education,” QWI Explorer application, U.S. Census Bureau.
for every drilling rig, some 120 workers: From Alison Ritter, public information officer at the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, email communication, May 22, 2017.
an average of 100 new wells drilled or fracked every month: Leonardo Maugeri, “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Geopolitics of Energy Project, Discussion Paper #2013-05, Harvard Kennedy School, June 2013, p. 6.
recruit potential dropouts: Jack Healy, “Pay in Oil Fields Is Luring Youths in Montana,” The New York Times, December 25, 2012.
Average wage for oil field workers: 2012 annual average from the Covered Employment and Wages program for code 211 Oil & Gas Extraction, U.S. Census Bureau, from Michael D. Ziesch, research analyst at Job Service North Dakota, email communication, October 24, 2013.
Average wages for high school graduates, dropouts, and college graduates: “Education Attainment,” 2008–2012 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, U.S. Census Bureau.
North Dakota became the most dangerous state to work in: American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” May 2014, p. 131.
2007 state job fatality rate: American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” April 2009, p. 82.
2012 state job fatality rate: “Death on the Job,” May 2014, p. 131.
104 deaths per 100,000 workers: Ibid., p. 32.
Burn injuries among workers: Maya Rao, “Twin Cities Hospitals Are Front Line in Treating Bakken Burn Victims,” (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, February 15, 2015.
342 workers died on the job in North Dakota: “Death on the Job,” May 2014, p. 134.
At least 74 … from an accident in the Bakken: Jennifer Gollan, “In North Dakota’s Bakken Oil Boom, There Will Be Blood,” Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, June 13, 2015.
OSHA field investigators … in western North Dakota: Ibid.
median OSHA fine in cases involving a death: “Death on the Job,” p. 118.
one oil exploration company … was fined for a worker death: Gollan, “In North Dakota’s Bakken Oil Boom,” Reveal.
workers’ compensation claims have more than quadrupled: Tim McDonnell and James West, “It’s the Wild F*ing West Out There,” Mother Jones (November/December 2012).
employers … paid the least among the states toward workers’ compensation: Michael Grabell and Howard Berkes, “The Demolition of Workers’ Comp,” ProPublica, March 4, 2015.
higher-than-recommended levels of silica: Eric Esswein, Max Kiefer, John Snawder, and Michael Breitenstein, “Worker Exposure to Cystalline Silica During Hydraulic Fracturing,” National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 23, 2012.
ruled against injured workers most of the time: Yue Qiu and Michael Grabell, “Workers’ Compensation Reforms by State,” ProPublica, March 4, 2015.
labor union membership had fallen by half: Drew Desilver, “Job Categories Where Union Membership Has Fallen Off Most,” Pew Research Center, April 27, 2015.
CHAPTER 12: DONNY NELSON
Interviews: Donny Nelson, Rena Nelson, Charles Neff
8,500 wells that were drilled: Lynn Helms, “Director’s Cut,” North Dakota Industrial Commission’s Department of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas Division, December 12, 2014.
244 million barrels of oil had been recovered: Matthew Rocco, “North Dakota Oil Boom Driving Economic Development,” FOXBusiness, February 11, 2013.
The state’s mineral laws: Charles L. Neff, attorney at law at Neff Eiken & Neff, PC., personal communication, January 30, 2017.
one in five surface owners: A. G. Sulzberger, “A Great Divide over Oil Riches,” The New York Times, December 27, 2011.
retired farmer and rancher Lenin Dibble: Ibid.
The average rainfall: “Total Precipitation in Inches by Month,” Earth System Research Laboratory at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, 1971–2000.
CHAPTER 13: CINDY MARCHELLO
Interviews: Cindy Marchello, Scott Morgan, Mana Kula, Curtis Kenney, Joanna Thamke
Water aquifer depths in North Dakota: Joanna Thamke, hydrologist at the USGS Wyoming–Montana Water Science Center, personal communication, April 4, 2016.
staying within 10 feet of the target path: Mason Inman, “Adventures in Mapmaking: Mapping a Fracking Boom in North Dakota,” Wired, January 7, 2015.
It took about 40 to 60 days to drill: Leonardo Maugeri, “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Geopolitics of Energy Project, Discussion Paper #2013-05, Harvard Kennedy School, June 2013, p. 8.
2,000 truck trips: Edwin Dobb, “The New Oil Landscape,” National Geographic, March 2013.
1.5 million to 6 million pounds of sand: Sally Younger, “Sand Rush: Fracking Boom Spurs Rush on Wisconsin Silica,” National Geographic, July 4, 2013.
9,000 pounds of pressure per square inch: Seamus McGraw, The End of Country: Dispatches from the Frack Zone (New York: Random House, 2011), p. 101.
CHAPTER 14: TIOGA
Interviews: Chuck Wilder
Pioneer Oil & Gas, drilled in the Williston area in 1916: John P. Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” North Dakota Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Series No. 89 (2001): 3.
“Possible Oil & Gas in North Dakota” press notice: Ibid., p. 1.
One well achieved the shocking depth: Sidney B. Anderson and John P. Bluemle, “Oil Exploration and Development in the North Dakota Williston Basin: 1982–1983 Update,” North Dakota Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Series No. 65 (1984): 2.
The drilling of Clarence Iverson No. 1: Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” pp. 23–35.
300 barrels in 17 hours: Ibid., p. 29.
Charles S. Agey quote: Ibid.
largest gas flares: Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” p. 35.
Bill Shemorry quote: William E. Shemorry, “Mud, Sweat and Oil: The Early Years of the Williston Basin,” 1991, quoted in Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” p. 25.
The location continued to produce oil for 28 years: Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” p. 30.
Leon “Tude” Gordon … later created: Ibid., pp. 32–33.
150 oil operators: Elwyn Robinson, History of North Dakota (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), p. 459.
Robinson quote: Ibid.
800 people were living in trailers in Williston: Ibid.
Tioga, grew 250 percent: Ibid.
> landowners sold their rights for as little as 62 cents an acre: Ibid.
tenth highest-producing state in the United States: Ibid., p. 460.
Discovery of Charlson-Silurian Pool and the Little Knife Field: Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” p. 44.
834 wells … and production peaked … 52.6 million barrels: Ibid., p. 45.
Williston was stuck with a mountain of debt: Mike Soraghan, “Big Mac Is King in N.D. Energy Boom, but Other Businesses Struggle to Keep Up,” E&E News, June 29, 2011.
Halliburton … experimented with fracturing rock: Seamus McGraw, The End of Country: Dispatches from the Frack Zone (New York: Random House, 2011), p. 48.
Oryx Energy was experimenting with horizontal drilling: Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters (New York: Portfolio, 2013), p. 56.
Kenneth Bowdon quote: Ibid., p. 63.
413 billion barrels of oil: Zuckerman, The Frackers, p. 230.
Bluemle prediction: Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” p. 54.
Continental Resources’ first well: Zuckerman, The Frackers, pp. 231–232.
experimented with fracking wells in stages: Ibid., pp. 252–254.
Hamm’s net worth: David Segal, “An Oklahoma Oilman’s Billion-Dollar Divorce,” The New York Times, November 10, 2014.
owned more oil under U.S. soil than any other American: Zuckerman, The Frackers, p. 6.
EOG drilled its first well in April 2006: Ibid., p. 234.
U.S. deployment in Iraq: Barbara Salazar Torreon, “U.S. Periods of War and Dates of Recent Conflicts,” Congressional Research Service, September 29, 2016, p. 8.
Cheney meeting with oil representatives: Thaddeus Herrick, “U.S. Oil Wants to Work in Iraq,” The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2003.
General John Abizaid quote: “Courting Disaster: The Fight for Oil, Water and a Healthy Planet,” 2007 Roundtable, Stanford University, October 13, 2007.
3,500 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in Iraq: “A Timeline of the Iraq War,” ThinkProgress, March 17, 2006.
In 2007, the United States consumed: “Data 5: Finished Products,” U.S. Supply and Disposition, U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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