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.]