Herman Oil, a company founded by long-time Williston resident Bob Herman, has been sold to Thomas Petroleum, a company based in Victoria, Texas for an undisclosed amount.That's where the name of this blog comes from: Williston's Million Dollar Way -- a four-lane divided highway that I grew up. From the time I learned to ride a bicycle, and could stay up until midnight watching television and advertisements of car dealers on Million Dollar Way, it has been part of my life, and ironically, continues to be a part of my life, albeit for very different reasons.
Herman said he had been working on selling the company for a couple years before somebody finally bought it. The deal with Thomas Petroleum took about four months to finalize.
“I started out about two years ago trying to sell the company, but everybody who wanted to buy it wanted me to finance it or something. But Thomas had the financial ability to buy the company. We worked on it probably about four months with them,” Herman said.
Herman arrived in Williston in 1954, when he went to work on oil rigs for 13 1/2 years.
When he first got into selling fuel, he owned a service station on Million Dollar Way.
As noted in my "welcome post," (unless I deleted it, I forget), my hitchhiking trips across the US and in Europe began on the Million Dollar Way.
I grew up on a farm south of Noonan, ND ... remember that going to Williston was something to look forward to for a young farm boy. On the way out of town one time, my Dad said "Yep, they call this the Million Dollar Way". I remember looking at the businesses on each side of the road, and being pretty impressed! I remember being fascinated with the small Harley Davidson shop, and I later bought a car from Roth Motors. Dave
ReplyDeleteGreat memories. Thank you for posting.
ReplyDeleteYou can take some of us out of rural North Dakota, but you can't take the memories away.
It really was a great experience, growing up in North Dakota. I have many fond memories. The best memory: how much "freedom" I had in Williston. My parents were very, very good to me.
My oldest memory of Williston area goe back into the middle 1950's. My uncle, a banker, got a group of farmers together back in the dirty 30's and with mules, shovels, etc. built a dam and created a small lake to irrigate veggies' The underground storgage was wide enough for bins on each side and path for the wagons to bring in the veg. Can remember the smell of the peatmoss.
ReplyDeleteLake had an island in it with log cabin on it, bridge to get to it. Trout swimming around. Anyway, went back out there in the late 1990's..lake still there, storage pit caved in, but you can still see the timbers. Was a good visit. Tubejig.SD
Trout? Wow. It must have been exciting for a kid to cross a bridge to get to the island. My dad talks a lot about the irrigation system back in the 30's in northwestern (very, very dry) South Dakota.
ReplyDeleteAmazing what the farmers could accomplish. Thank you for taking time to comment.