Grenora, North Dakota -- July 21, 2015

The Williston Herald has a nice piece on Grenora.

Around 3 p.m. on a Friday at Treasured Stitches. a mother and her young children entered the store to consider buying clothes and a personalized towel to use at the swimming pool. The store is the newest retail business on Main Street in Grenora. It sits across the street from construction on a soon-to-open hair salon and only several blocks away from ongoing build-out of a town square.

Grenora is a gem settled in the shadow of Williston, 44 miles to the north and west. Though it hides in the Bakken formation, four miles east of the North Dakota and Montana border, the city and its people remain independent from the chaos of the so-called booms and busts.

Founded in 1916 and named after the Great Northern Railroad, the city has avoided the troubles of most oil drilling and remains one of the only regional cities to decline joining the Western Area Water Supply Authority, a domestic water project utilizing the Missouri River and treated at the Williston Water Treatment Plant.

In recent years, the majority of Grenora officials and residents have preferred independence and keeping the right to sell its water supplies, for example, rather than prescribing to the rush of outside influence — and in doing so have managed to not outpace themselves.

This was the "North Dakota" I grew up with. Great memories. 

Much more at the link.