By the late 1950s, energy had moved to the center of North Dakota’s economy. Oil discoveries, lignite development, and new transportation corridors reshaped how the state understood its future. Universities responded in kind, increasing research capacity and strengthening partnerships that tied local resources to national priorities.
Many of the technologies we now take for granted were just coming into widespread use. Air conditioning was becoming common nationally in the mid-1950s. Transportation underwent a revolution. The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation opened the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, bringing inexpensive water transportation within a few hundred miles of eastern North Dakota.
Three years earlier, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 launched the interstate era, with routes stretching from Fargo to the Montana border and north toward Canada. These advancements in technology and transportation shrunk distances and expanded expectations. By the 1960s, both would become central to how North Dakotans imagined their economic future—particularly in energy.
A Growing Grand Forks
The 1950s also brought visible change was visible to the University of North Dakota (UND) campus. In 1954, a new education building debuted the first elevator at UND, a literal and symbolic lift. In 1958, the university celebrated its 75th anniversary. Hockey games were televised for the first time. A typewriting conference underscored the era’s faith in professional training and administrative skills, and although “typewriting conference” might sound quaint now, in the 1950s it meant business.
These changes signaled steady institutional confidence. Planning decisions, campus investments, and professional gatherings all pointed in the same direction: sustained growth. A famous photograph shows a lopsided lignite laboratory intentionally constructed to accommodate a future addition, an architectural wager on expansion.
Optimism and Federal Partnership
The postwar years were marked by what one historian described as “an atmosphere of good feeling and deep pride.” Federal partnership, expanded during the New Deal, deepened after World War II as investment flowed into defense installations, highways, universities, and scientific research. Between 1945 and 1960, the United States experienced unprecedented peacetime growth. Military contracts and academic collaborations tied western states more closely to national priorities.
For North Dakota, federal spending became a catalyst. New highways improved market access. Defense infrastructure brought capital and technical expertise. University research funding expanded both facilities and intellectual capacity. Together, these investments reshaped the state’s economic horizon and strengthened its ability to engage emerging energy industries.
Energy Boom, Bust, and Adaptation
In 1951, oil was discovered near Williston, launching North Dakota’s first oil boom (1951–1954). The discovery reshaped academic priorities almost immediately. A petroleum engineering program began in 1954, and cooperative doctoral research in fuel technology signaled an early commitment to advanced energy research.
At the same time, older industries faltered. Coal mining declined as oil, natural gas, and hydroelectric power reduced demand for lignite. Natural gas, once dismissed as a nuisance by-product, became viable through new pipeline technologies and growing western markets.
However, energy transitions are rarely straightforward replacements. New technologies tend to layer over older systems rather than fully replace them. North Dakota’s midcentury energy landscape was one of coexistence and competition: coal beside oil, hydropower beside fossil fuels. Energy advancements, as they were developed and then implemented next to existing technology, created the first portions of what would become an all-of-the-above energy system in North Dakota.
Looking Ahead
By 1958, public and private investment reinforced a belief that growth could be engineered and sustained. In North Dakota, energy industries rose and evolved, technologies advanced, and institutions expanded in anticipation of the future. Expansion was deliberate, grounded in practicality, and built with resilience in mind. The lopsided laboratory captured that mindset.
Seventy-five years after UND celebrated its 75th anniversary, the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) continues the tradition of deliberate growth and innovation. We still embrace an all-of-the-above energy approach, advancing research across coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, carbon capture, and emerging technologies. Just as midcentury planners built laboratories with future expansion in mind, today the EERC invests in tools and spaces that ensure it can adapt, lead, and grow with the ever-evolving energy landscape.
Sources
Conway, K. Passing Through: Migration, Class, Crime, and Identity in the Oilfields of North Dakota. Great Plains Quarterly 2018, 38 (4), 425−432. DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2018.0063
Geiger, L.G. University of the Northern Plains: A History of the University of North Dakota, 1883–1958; University of North Dakota Press, 1958. https://commons.und.edu/und-books/4
Mills, D.W. Cold War in a Cold Land; University of Oklahoma Press, 2015.
Nash, G.N. The Federal Landscape: An Economic History of the Twentieth-Century West; University of Arizona Press, 1999.
Robinson, E.B. History of North Dakota, University of North Dakota, 2017. DOI: 10.31356/oers001.
University of North Dakota Alumni Association. Approve Special Seal for Anniversary Use. The University of North Dakota Alumni Review 1958, 35 (1), 1. https://commons.und.edu/und-alumni-review/185
University of North Dakota Alumni Association. Construct Education Building. The University of North Dakota Alumni Review 1957, 31 (4), 1. https://commons.und.edu/und-alumni-review/224
University of North Dakota Alumni Association. U to Host Institute on Typing. The University of North Dakota Alumni Review 1958, 35 (7), 1. https://commons.und.edu/und-alumni-review/313