YES! The NDIC Map Is Back Up! -- May 5, 2017

Link here.

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For The Archives 

A Note For The Granddaughters

On another note, a reader sent me a nice note regarding the Carscallen wells in Truax oil field, east of Williston. Now that the NDIC map is back up I could look at them again (their location). In the process, I took the time to update the production numbers for these wells. 

Attached are clippings from an old Williston ND Herald, dated May 27, 1966, written by Katherine Carscallen, reminiscing about the good/bad ol' days.

It looks like part of the story is missing (about the basket) but more than enough is there to give one an idea of what it was like back in the day (this article reminds me a lot of the stories my dad would tell me about growing up in Newell, SD).

I believe one can click on the clippings and then with "zoom" on your computer enlarge the clippings to make it easier to read. Or the old fashioned way -- find that magnifying glass. Actually, you don't even have to do that: you can make the browser zoom in as big as you want and then easily read the article.

The essay by Katherine Carscallen begins:

How I received a gift of land on the 17th of May (1903) is a long story. It began way back in Norway many years ago, when we heard of a Great Uncle in America that offered to give away 160 acres of land for free. All he wanted from us in return for his land was hard work.

So with my parents, Alfred and Johanne Hoving, and my brother Oscar, we rushed off to America.

First we came to Devils Lake, where we stayed for almost a year. Then on the 29th of April, 1904, we came to Wheelock. Here at the depot we were met by the land locator, Mason Smith. He had brought along a team of horses and a hayrack. Into that hayrack went pots and pans, stoves, beds, table and chairs, 12 hens, a rooster and us. Poor Lovelin had to trot behind. Mr Smith drove us to about eight miles south of Wheelock. And there lay our gift form the Great Uncle. There was land all around, but no people.

My own grandfather and grandmother, also from Norway, also got their land from that Great Uncle, about the same time, and settled near Newell, SD.