One of the nice things about blogging is observations made by other folks. I never thought about it, but it turns out the oil companies have contracted with a manufacturing firm to provide cattle guards in the Williston Basin.
On one of my first road trips, it was not uncommon to drive across four cattle guards to get to a well site. The cattle guards are identical and it is obvious they are being mass produced by a mom-and-pop operation with five employees. (I'm making that up, but you get the point.)
I was told the cattle guards are individually made at the site, and that may be true, but the cattle guards I drove over yesterday all looked alike. Until told differently, my hunch is they are being mass produced in a steel building somewhere in western North Dakota. [Update, June 23, 2012: being built by Steffes Group, Dickinson-based; business has doubled; recently added capacity west of Grand Forks.]
My first time to hear about cattle guard. Are they really meant to guard the herd?
ReplyDeleteCattle won't cross cattle guards. Cattle guards eliminate the need for gates. Vehicles now drive through openings in the fences; no gates. But the grates that the vehicles drive over prevent cows from going through those same openings. I'm sure Wikipedia has a photo.
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