Oil is making millionaires in North Dakota
By JAMES MacPHERSON, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 30, 5:00 AM ET
Excerpt:
"BEULAH, N.D. - Oscar Stohler was raised in a sod house in western
North Dakota and ranched there for nearly seven decades. He never gave
much thought to what lay below the grass that fattened his cattle.
When oilmen wanted to drill there last year, Stohler, 83, doubted oil
would be found two miles underground on his property. He even joked
about it.
"I told them if they hit oil, I was going to buy a Cadillac
convertible and put those big horns on the front and wear a 10-gallon
hat," Stohler recalled.
He still drives his old pickup and wears a mesh farm cap =97 but it's by
choice.
,talk.politics.misc,In less than a year, Stohler and his wife, Lorene,
82, have become millionaires from the production of one well on their
land near Dunn Center, a mile or so from the sod home where Oscar grew
up. A second well has begun producing on their property and another is
being drilled =97 all aimed at the Bakken shale formation, a rich
deposit that the U.S. Geological Survey calls the largest continuous
oil ac***ulation it has ever *****sed".....
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