December 11, 2024 • 21 mins
Kate Waldera talks to Mark Hanson & Stephani Baltzer about Montana-Dakota Utilities's 100th Anniversary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarket's unique flavor. History
Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck Historical Society,
a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve, and
promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up the
volume and enjoy another helping of History Hot Dish.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm your
host Kate Walderra, a member of the Bismarck Historical Society's
Board of Directors. Today our guests are Mark Hanson, the
senior public relations representative, and Stephanie Baltzer, the supervisor of
Record Information with MDU Resources Group. And today we are
(00:47):
going to talk about significant milestones and the history of
MDU Resources Group, which celebrates its one hundredth anniversary in
twenty twenty four. Mark and Stephanie come to this broadcast
and for our listeners, tell us a bit about yourselves,
your educational and professional background, your role with MDU, and
(01:11):
why you're interested in preserving and promoting Bismarck's history.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Sure and Mark Hanson grew up in North Dakota in
eastern part of the state. I went to the University
of North Dakota and majored in journalism. Then spent twenty
years in the newspaper business all in North Dakota, from
Grand Forks to Williston, Mine not and down in Bismarck
before I ended up at an ad agency in town
(01:39):
here and then am into my twentieth year with MD
Resources doing PR, communication, media relations work for the company.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Excellent, And Stephanie, I'm a Bismarck native and I was
with the state as a librarian and archivist for twenty
years and then I came to MD you about three
and a half years ago, and I take care of
all the records and information and kind of have become
(02:13):
a de facto archivist for the company. Okay, excellent, So
what can you tell us about the early days of
the gas and Electric Utility company that most of us
generally know is MDU. How did it get it start,
who was involved, and the very important thing, what came
first electricity or gas?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
So, as you mentioned, we're into our one hundred year
as a company, and when we started looking back at
this and how we were going to celebrate it, kind
of put together a video on it and find different
ways to look back in time and also kind of
where we were headed to the future. One of the
interesting things was at the start of kind of saying,
(03:00):
how did a couple of lumber businessmen from Wisconsin and
an engineer from Chicago form a power company based in
Minneapolis but yet serve customers on the border of the
North Dakota Montana states. And that's how the company started.
So electricity was first in nineteen twenty four on the
(03:20):
border of Montana and North Dakota, and it was a
gentleman R. M. Heskett, who was an engineer and did
a lot of work with street cars over the years,
ended up working with a couple of lumber businessmen in Nato,
Wisconsin and who owned a small utility, and so they
started talking and he talked them into kind of investing
(03:44):
in his idea kind of the early days of a
venture capitalist, I guess, and he ended up buying a
couple of utilities in Minnesota and what's called Minnesota Power Company.
And as that kind of took off and they established
their headquarters in Minneapolis, they started expanding into Montana and
(04:06):
North Dakota, and that's how it kind of got it
start and just grew from there, and a couple of
years later Ramaseme area there's a lot of natural gas
availability and they got into the natural gas business and
that was first started to produce power and then of
course grew into home heating and different uses in that regard.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Okay, And I know MDU has a lot of different
buildings scattered throughout Bismarck, plus a lovely campus that's on
the north west part of town. In the early days,
where were the MDU offices and service buildings located on
any of them still in use.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
By MDU, Well, there's been quite a few buildings, and
I probably won't touch on all of them, but we
were actually talking on the way here. There was a
manufactured gas plant that was just about a block over
from this recording studio on Front and that was torn down.
(05:10):
We're not do we even know for sure when it happened.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I can't recall the exact date the building went down,
but they did do the cleanup of the site probably
five eight years ago, okay.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah. And then there's also the Bismarck Power Plant, which
was on the corner of Front and Third, and that
was originally a Hughes Electric Company power.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Plant remember that ELI days too, yep.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And we I wasn't able to find exact date that
we became the owners of it, but I believe it
was probably nineteen forty five when we bought the company
that had become that had come from Hughes Electric Company.
So we operated it from nineteen forty five to nineteen
sixty seven, and then it was decommissioned when the steam
(06:00):
conversion happened in downtown Bismarck because it was no longer
cost effective. And then we also had one of the
earliest ones I could find was we operated a hospitality
room in our MDU office building, which was at one
twenty North third Street, which is the Logan Building, and
the hospitality room was kind of a mock gas kitchen,
(06:24):
so people did go in there new demonstrations, and we
had a whole department that kind of serviced that function,
and that operated for many years, and people from the
community could come in and use the room and it
was kind of a place to be. And then one
of our other main office buildings was at Second and Broadway,
(06:44):
and I think a lot of people might remember dropping
off their MDU bill at the drive through that was there,
and my dad seems to remember that there might have
been another building on the south side of the street
that might have been our appliance business, because we also
so Appliances for many years. And then in nineteen sixty
(07:05):
six we bought the former Elks building which is on
the corner of Avenue A and for Street, which we
still currently occupy. And that's right next to our main
general office, which was built nineteen sixty eight, which is
on the corner of Roser I.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Think those two buildings are if I remember right, they're
kind of separated by a parking current parking lot, gotcha.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, we still occupy both of those buildings. Okay,
that's the utility part of the business. The service center
opened in the mid nineteen eighties and that's on Airport Road,
and I.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Was wondering about that building too. It's got a huge yard.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yeah, that's where all the equipment sits. And the fleet
building is also over there, Okay, and we still obviously
operate that one. And then so MD Resources is our
parent company, and then we have the utility. SO Resources
was in the gold Steal building on for many years
(08:02):
until they opened the corporate campus in about two thousand
and six, is that right?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Two thousand and five was at the end of the year,
is when we officially moved in in December, So yeah,
two thousand and six really was the first full year
of being in the campus, Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
And the campus currently holds the Resources building and WBI,
which are part of our companies, Okay, and then Knife
River's building is still there, but they're no longer part
of our company now.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I think I remember from reading the notes that you
sent that it was a spin off, so which basically
means that someone else or another company purchased it.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Actually the spinoff, they became their own company, and so
it's MDU is a publicly held traded stock, publicly held company.
So when you spin it off, Knife River became their
own publicly held company and they trade under their own
tickers Zimbol, and they have their own employee base. They're
(09:03):
no longer part of our company. And then recently we
just completed the spinoff of a second entity. MDU Construction
Services Group was the name of that business when it
was under the md Resources umbrella, and they changed their
name to Everest Construction Group, and they also spun off
and became their own publicly held company, and so the
(09:26):
utility or resources itself has kind of come full circle,
so to speak, of starting as a utility, and now
that's what we are, strictly regulated utility energy business of
our utility companies and WBI Energy which runs the pipelines.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay, right, gotcha. Well, a reminder for our guests that
have just joined us. You're listening to History Hot Dish
on Radio Access one O two point five f M.
I'm your host, Kate Waldera, and today our guests are
Mark Hanson and Stephanie Ballser the MDU Resources Group. You
(10:02):
are currently listening to part one of a two part
helping of History Hot Dish where we're celebrating one hundred
years of service by Montana Dakota Utilities. Now, there were
some changes that MDU went through from the it's very
beginning and then up through just prior to the end
(10:23):
of World War Two. At that time, the footprint of
Bismarck was a lot smaller. There were very few homes
north of Divide Avenue, and the Highland Acres neighborhood was
nothing more than just rolling hills and coolies, and the
capital was basically the north edge of tone. Can you
(10:44):
talk about some of those changes for MDU.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Certainly so MDU well, during World War Two and during
the Depression, there wasn't a lot of expansion and it
started picking up ray after World War two. Specifically, they had,
especially if the natural gas business, they had difficulty expanding
(11:09):
because of a lack of supply first and then also
lack of pipe to get out to the different areas.
And so once World War two was over, they started
rolling with they found more natural gas supply, they started
(11:30):
storing natural gas so they could start getting it out
to more homes after that, and they well, actually already
in nineteen thirty they built a pipeline from Cabin Creek
to Bismarck, and so that's kind of when natural gas
started coming to Bismarck. And in nineteen forty five they
(11:51):
added twenty thousand electric customers, so that's kind of the
big start. And then gas customers doubled between nineteen forty
six and nineteen fifty one, and that was driven a
lot by the bigger areas like Dickinson and Bismarck and
(12:12):
Nandan and those places. And then things really started picking
up when oil and gas was discovered in the Willston
Basin in the early fifties, so that kind of and
you got into oil and gas production at that point,
and it just started to build from there. And then
(12:32):
nineteen forty five is also when we purchased Knife River
Mining and so and had they had been supplying a
lot of the plants with lignite that kind of thing.
So it just it kind of all started to really
barrel after that. And then with the population growing and
(12:55):
they a lot of our publications had statistics about this
was the population this time, and this is the population now,
and we're serving so many more customers from there.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, definitely, and it just goes just as a natural
flow from people settling here, the population growing, building, and
then you folks, you know, bringing in the utilities for
those developments. And so I'm sure you know, as time
went on, things just really exploded, like you said, and.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
The company itself, you think too. When we first were
listed on the New York Stock Exchange was in nineteen
forty eight, and then talking about this growth after that
is also about the time nineteen sixty eight when the
headquarters moved from Minneapolis to Bismarck. You know, the company
was getting to be a size that you know, the
(13:52):
leadership really needed to be in the area where we
served most of our customers instead of off in a
community where we didn't serve anyone. And so that's when
that move was made and and a lot of expansion
and growth from that point on.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It was quite large, and it was pretty unusual too,
if I remember from the notes correctly, that to have
a headquarters in the city or in a larger city
in the area where it was being served. Usually they
were far out, and it was kind of a unique
situation to have a company have their headquarters here in
(14:28):
the in the in the main city.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, it was an important move and I think it
proved to be a really good move at the time.
You know, it really uh put the company in a
good position for its growth.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Now, many of our listeners recall the R. M. Heskett
Station power plant that was named after mdu's founder on
Roland Heskett, and that's situated on the west side of
the river near the refinery in the facility as gone
has had a lot of changes for its lifespan. Can
you share with the audience some of the highlights of
(15:04):
that facility's time and service sure.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So as as the electric you know, demand grew, it
was met by a lot of smaller type of generating
facilities that mainly served you know, pretty close to where
the demand was. So when the first coal fired power
plant was built at the Hesket site, it was twenty
(15:31):
five megawatts, which at the time was the largest generating
facility the company owned. And then over time to me
demand another and that was built in nineteen fifty four.
We had another one built in Sydney, Montana, the Lewis
and Clark station, And then by nineteen sixty three demand
(15:52):
was you know growing, and they built a larger, larger
unit at the Hesket site and that was a seventy
five mega lot coal fired plants, So we had one
hundred megawatts of coal fired energy there for many years.
That served the customers with safe, reliable and really low
(16:15):
cost energy for many years. We have two natural gas
plants there now and the first one was built in
twenty fourteen and one just went online here in twenty
twenty four. And so those plants you know, built in
the mid fifties to early sixties, they served you know
a lot of customers for a lot of years and
(16:38):
did it well, and it just got to the point
where they just weren't as efficient or as cost effective
to serve. They could still run probably today, but as
part of the big market that we're a part of
now in a big energy grid, they just wouldn't be
called upon to run very often because they were so
expensive to run. Oh absolutely, So we got to a
point where we announced and then tired both those units,
(17:01):
and so the first unit actually both were retired right
about the same time in February of twenty twenty two.
And then since that point there was a lot of
the decommissioning of it and taking it down and kind
of reclaiming the area into what if you were to
drive over there now would be a big, big kind
(17:21):
of grass area there where the plants stood. The two
stacks were kind of icons of the area for many
years you could kind of use that as a point
of reference. And so now they're not on that landscape anymore,
and the two gas units are a much lower profile,
and unless you're right on the road by them, you
(17:43):
can't really see them from Highway eighteen oh six or
even across the river because they're kind of down in
between a couple of smaller hills and so it's kind
of a much smaller footprint for power plants there, but.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It blends in with the landscape.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
But they did. They served their purpose for many years
and just got to a point where I just weren't
as efficient and it was time to move to the
next level.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, yeah, now that must be in the notes that
I received. That would probably account for like Heskett one,
Heskett two, Hesket three, and I think, what is it
up to?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
No Four, Hesket four. Yes, the two coal plants were
Hesket Unit one and two, and then the two natural
gas turbines are Hesket three and four.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Okay, and then another thing too, and it's somewhat related,
but in a way not really. We had touched on
natural gas and the pipelines for that and when I
was reading through the notes, I was really surprised to
find out that there was a pipeline under the original
Liberty Memorial Bridge that was suspended from the deck. I
(18:54):
found that very interesting. Is you know, I have no
I didn't have any clue that was ever there. How
long was that particular pipeline and use or was it
still in use up to the day that they remove
the bridge.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You know, I'm not sure when that pipeline changed. I
know that WBI Energy has a pipeline underneath the river
now that crosses, but our electric service crosses underneath that,
underneath the new bridge and the old one, okay, where
it's in within a kind of a cavity underneath there
(19:32):
where you can go in and they can service that.
And there's two pretty large power line towers on each
side of the of the bridge there, and then you
don't see where the wires go from there, and they're
all they kind of go underground and then they go
underneath that bridge to come across the river and serve
from Mandan to Bismarck and vice versa.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's it's just probably a more efficient way and it
keeps the landscape from being so cluttered and the whole
conundrum of having these lines coming over the river this way,
they can just be guided by a structure that's already there. Yes, Yeah,
very interesting on that.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
A reminder for our guests that this is part one
of a two part episode featuring Mark Hanson and Stephanie
Bauzer with MDU Resources Group. Please join us for the
second helping of History Hot Dish when we'll continue to
talk about the history of MDU, who is celebrating its
one hundredth anniversary in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish. If you
like what you heard, that is Mark Historical Society hosts
programs and events throughout the year. We welcome all those
with an interest in local history to join us. For
more information about programs or membership, visit our website Bismarkhistory
dot org or find us on Facebook. You can find
History Hot Dish on one o two point five FM,
(20:57):
Radioaccess dot org, and anywhere you find great podcasts. History
Hot Dish is produced by the Bismarck Historical Society in
partnership with Dakota Media Access
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarket's unique flavor. History
Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck Historical Society,
a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve, and
promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up the
volume and enjoy another helping of History Hot Dish.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm your
host Kate Walderra, a member of the Bismarck Historical Society's
Board of Directors. Today our guests are Mark Hanson, the
senior public relations representative, and Stephanie Baltzer, the supervisor of
Record Information with MDU Resources Group. And today we are
(00:47):
going to talk about significant milestones and the history of
MDU Resources Group, which celebrates its one hundredth anniversary in
twenty twenty four. Mark and Stephanie come to this broadcast
and for our listeners, tell us a bit about yourselves,
your educational and professional background, your role with MDU, and
(01:11):
why you're interested in preserving and promoting Bismarck's history.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Sure and Mark Hanson grew up in North Dakota in
eastern part of the state. I went to the University
of North Dakota and majored in journalism. Then spent twenty
years in the newspaper business all in North Dakota, from
Grand Forks to Williston, Mine not and down in Bismarck
before I ended up at an ad agency in town
(01:39):
here and then am into my twentieth year with MD
Resources doing PR, communication, media relations work for the company.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Excellent, And Stephanie, I'm a Bismarck native and I was
with the state as a librarian and archivist for twenty
years and then I came to MD you about three
and a half years ago, and I take care of
all the records and information and kind of have become
(02:13):
a de facto archivist for the company. Okay, excellent, So
what can you tell us about the early days of
the gas and Electric Utility company that most of us
generally know is MDU. How did it get it start,
who was involved, and the very important thing, what came
first electricity or gas?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
So, as you mentioned, we're into our one hundred year
as a company, and when we started looking back at
this and how we were going to celebrate it, kind
of put together a video on it and find different
ways to look back in time and also kind of
where we were headed to the future. One of the
interesting things was at the start of kind of saying,
(03:00):
how did a couple of lumber businessmen from Wisconsin and
an engineer from Chicago form a power company based in
Minneapolis but yet serve customers on the border of the
North Dakota Montana states. And that's how the company started.
So electricity was first in nineteen twenty four on the
(03:20):
border of Montana and North Dakota, and it was a
gentleman R. M. Heskett, who was an engineer and did
a lot of work with street cars over the years,
ended up working with a couple of lumber businessmen in Nato,
Wisconsin and who owned a small utility, and so they
started talking and he talked them into kind of investing
(03:44):
in his idea kind of the early days of a
venture capitalist, I guess, and he ended up buying a
couple of utilities in Minnesota and what's called Minnesota Power Company.
And as that kind of took off and they established
their headquarters in Minneapolis, they started expanding into Montana and
(04:06):
North Dakota, and that's how it kind of got it
start and just grew from there, and a couple of
years later Ramaseme area there's a lot of natural gas
availability and they got into the natural gas business and
that was first started to produce power and then of
course grew into home heating and different uses in that regard.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Okay, And I know MDU has a lot of different
buildings scattered throughout Bismarck, plus a lovely campus that's on
the north west part of town. In the early days,
where were the MDU offices and service buildings located on
any of them still in use.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
By MDU, Well, there's been quite a few buildings, and
I probably won't touch on all of them, but we
were actually talking on the way here. There was a
manufactured gas plant that was just about a block over
from this recording studio on Front and that was torn down.
(05:10):
We're not do we even know for sure when it happened.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I can't recall the exact date the building went down,
but they did do the cleanup of the site probably
five eight years ago, okay.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah. And then there's also the Bismarck Power Plant, which
was on the corner of Front and Third, and that
was originally a Hughes Electric Company power.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Plant remember that ELI days too, yep.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And we I wasn't able to find exact date that
we became the owners of it, but I believe it
was probably nineteen forty five when we bought the company
that had become that had come from Hughes Electric Company.
So we operated it from nineteen forty five to nineteen
sixty seven, and then it was decommissioned when the steam
(06:00):
conversion happened in downtown Bismarck because it was no longer
cost effective. And then we also had one of the
earliest ones I could find was we operated a hospitality
room in our MDU office building, which was at one
twenty North third Street, which is the Logan Building, and
the hospitality room was kind of a mock gas kitchen,
(06:24):
so people did go in there new demonstrations, and we
had a whole department that kind of serviced that function,
and that operated for many years, and people from the
community could come in and use the room and it
was kind of a place to be. And then one
of our other main office buildings was at Second and Broadway,
(06:44):
and I think a lot of people might remember dropping
off their MDU bill at the drive through that was there,
and my dad seems to remember that there might have
been another building on the south side of the street
that might have been our appliance business, because we also
so Appliances for many years. And then in nineteen sixty
(07:05):
six we bought the former Elks building which is on
the corner of Avenue A and for Street, which we
still currently occupy. And that's right next to our main
general office, which was built nineteen sixty eight, which is
on the corner of Roser I.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Think those two buildings are if I remember right, they're
kind of separated by a parking current parking lot, gotcha.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, we still occupy both of those buildings. Okay,
that's the utility part of the business. The service center
opened in the mid nineteen eighties and that's on Airport Road,
and I.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Was wondering about that building too. It's got a huge yard.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yeah, that's where all the equipment sits. And the fleet
building is also over there, Okay, and we still obviously
operate that one. And then so MD Resources is our
parent company, and then we have the utility. SO Resources
was in the gold Steal building on for many years
(08:02):
until they opened the corporate campus in about two thousand
and six, is that right?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Two thousand and five was at the end of the year,
is when we officially moved in in December, So yeah,
two thousand and six really was the first full year
of being in the campus, Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
And the campus currently holds the Resources building and WBI,
which are part of our companies, Okay, and then Knife
River's building is still there, but they're no longer part
of our company now.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I think I remember from reading the notes that you
sent that it was a spin off, so which basically
means that someone else or another company purchased it.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Actually the spinoff, they became their own company, and so
it's MDU is a publicly held traded stock, publicly held company.
So when you spin it off, Knife River became their
own publicly held company and they trade under their own
tickers Zimbol, and they have their own employee base. They're
(09:03):
no longer part of our company. And then recently we
just completed the spinoff of a second entity. MDU Construction
Services Group was the name of that business when it
was under the md Resources umbrella, and they changed their
name to Everest Construction Group, and they also spun off
and became their own publicly held company, and so the
(09:26):
utility or resources itself has kind of come full circle,
so to speak, of starting as a utility, and now
that's what we are, strictly regulated utility energy business of
our utility companies and WBI Energy which runs the pipelines.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay, right, gotcha. Well, a reminder for our guests that
have just joined us. You're listening to History Hot Dish
on Radio Access one O two point five f M.
I'm your host, Kate Waldera, and today our guests are
Mark Hanson and Stephanie Ballser the MDU Resources Group. You
(10:02):
are currently listening to part one of a two part
helping of History Hot Dish where we're celebrating one hundred
years of service by Montana Dakota Utilities. Now, there were
some changes that MDU went through from the it's very
beginning and then up through just prior to the end
(10:23):
of World War Two. At that time, the footprint of
Bismarck was a lot smaller. There were very few homes
north of Divide Avenue, and the Highland Acres neighborhood was
nothing more than just rolling hills and coolies, and the
capital was basically the north edge of tone. Can you
(10:44):
talk about some of those changes for MDU.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Certainly so MDU well, during World War Two and during
the Depression, there wasn't a lot of expansion and it
started picking up ray after World War two. Specifically, they had,
especially if the natural gas business, they had difficulty expanding
(11:09):
because of a lack of supply first and then also
lack of pipe to get out to the different areas.
And so once World War two was over, they started
rolling with they found more natural gas supply, they started
(11:30):
storing natural gas so they could start getting it out
to more homes after that, and they well, actually already
in nineteen thirty they built a pipeline from Cabin Creek
to Bismarck, and so that's kind of when natural gas
started coming to Bismarck. And in nineteen forty five they
(11:51):
added twenty thousand electric customers, so that's kind of the
big start. And then gas customers doubled between nineteen forty
six and nineteen fifty one, and that was driven a
lot by the bigger areas like Dickinson and Bismarck and
(12:12):
Nandan and those places. And then things really started picking
up when oil and gas was discovered in the Willston
Basin in the early fifties, so that kind of and
you got into oil and gas production at that point,
and it just started to build from there. And then
(12:32):
nineteen forty five is also when we purchased Knife River
Mining and so and had they had been supplying a
lot of the plants with lignite that kind of thing.
So it just it kind of all started to really
barrel after that. And then with the population growing and
(12:55):
they a lot of our publications had statistics about this
was the population this time, and this is the population now,
and we're serving so many more customers from there.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, definitely, and it just goes just as a natural
flow from people settling here, the population growing, building, and
then you folks, you know, bringing in the utilities for
those developments. And so I'm sure you know, as time
went on, things just really exploded, like you said, and.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
The company itself, you think too. When we first were
listed on the New York Stock Exchange was in nineteen
forty eight, and then talking about this growth after that
is also about the time nineteen sixty eight when the
headquarters moved from Minneapolis to Bismarck. You know, the company
was getting to be a size that you know, the
(13:52):
leadership really needed to be in the area where we
served most of our customers instead of off in a
community where we didn't serve anyone. And so that's when
that move was made and and a lot of expansion
and growth from that point on.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It was quite large, and it was pretty unusual too,
if I remember from the notes correctly, that to have
a headquarters in the city or in a larger city
in the area where it was being served. Usually they
were far out, and it was kind of a unique
situation to have a company have their headquarters here in
(14:28):
the in the in the main city.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, it was an important move and I think it
proved to be a really good move at the time.
You know, it really uh put the company in a
good position for its growth.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Now, many of our listeners recall the R. M. Heskett
Station power plant that was named after mdu's founder on
Roland Heskett, and that's situated on the west side of
the river near the refinery in the facility as gone
has had a lot of changes for its lifespan. Can
you share with the audience some of the highlights of
(15:04):
that facility's time and service sure.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So as as the electric you know, demand grew, it
was met by a lot of smaller type of generating
facilities that mainly served you know, pretty close to where
the demand was. So when the first coal fired power
plant was built at the Hesket site, it was twenty
(15:31):
five megawatts, which at the time was the largest generating
facility the company owned. And then over time to me
demand another and that was built in nineteen fifty four.
We had another one built in Sydney, Montana, the Lewis
and Clark station, And then by nineteen sixty three demand
(15:52):
was you know growing, and they built a larger, larger
unit at the Hesket site and that was a seventy
five mega lot coal fired plants, So we had one
hundred megawatts of coal fired energy there for many years.
That served the customers with safe, reliable and really low
(16:15):
cost energy for many years. We have two natural gas
plants there now and the first one was built in
twenty fourteen and one just went online here in twenty
twenty four. And so those plants you know, built in
the mid fifties to early sixties, they served you know
a lot of customers for a lot of years and
(16:38):
did it well, and it just got to the point
where they just weren't as efficient or as cost effective
to serve. They could still run probably today, but as
part of the big market that we're a part of
now in a big energy grid, they just wouldn't be
called upon to run very often because they were so
expensive to run. Oh absolutely, So we got to a
point where we announced and then tired both those units,
(17:01):
and so the first unit actually both were retired right
about the same time in February of twenty twenty two.
And then since that point there was a lot of
the decommissioning of it and taking it down and kind
of reclaiming the area into what if you were to
drive over there now would be a big, big kind
(17:21):
of grass area there where the plants stood. The two
stacks were kind of icons of the area for many
years you could kind of use that as a point
of reference. And so now they're not on that landscape anymore,
and the two gas units are a much lower profile,
and unless you're right on the road by them, you
(17:43):
can't really see them from Highway eighteen oh six or
even across the river because they're kind of down in
between a couple of smaller hills and so it's kind
of a much smaller footprint for power plants there, but.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It blends in with the landscape.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
But they did. They served their purpose for many years
and just got to a point where I just weren't
as efficient and it was time to move to the
next level.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, yeah, now that must be in the notes that
I received. That would probably account for like Heskett one,
Heskett two, Hesket three, and I think, what is it
up to?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
No Four, Hesket four. Yes, the two coal plants were
Hesket Unit one and two, and then the two natural
gas turbines are Hesket three and four.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Okay, and then another thing too, and it's somewhat related,
but in a way not really. We had touched on
natural gas and the pipelines for that and when I
was reading through the notes, I was really surprised to
find out that there was a pipeline under the original
Liberty Memorial Bridge that was suspended from the deck. I
(18:54):
found that very interesting. Is you know, I have no
I didn't have any clue that was ever there. How
long was that particular pipeline and use or was it
still in use up to the day that they remove
the bridge.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You know, I'm not sure when that pipeline changed. I
know that WBI Energy has a pipeline underneath the river
now that crosses, but our electric service crosses underneath that,
underneath the new bridge and the old one, okay, where
it's in within a kind of a cavity underneath there
(19:32):
where you can go in and they can service that.
And there's two pretty large power line towers on each
side of the of the bridge there, and then you
don't see where the wires go from there, and they're
all they kind of go underground and then they go
underneath that bridge to come across the river and serve
from Mandan to Bismarck and vice versa.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's it's just probably a more efficient way and it
keeps the landscape from being so cluttered and the whole
conundrum of having these lines coming over the river this way,
they can just be guided by a structure that's already there. Yes, Yeah,
very interesting on that.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
A reminder for our guests that this is part one
of a two part episode featuring Mark Hanson and Stephanie
Bauzer with MDU Resources Group. Please join us for the
second helping of History Hot Dish when we'll continue to
talk about the history of MDU, who is celebrating its
one hundredth anniversary in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish. If you
like what you heard, that is Mark Historical Society hosts
programs and events throughout the year. We welcome all those
with an interest in local history to join us. For
more information about programs or membership, visit our website Bismarkhistory
dot org or find us on Facebook. You can find
History Hot Dish on one o two point five FM,
(20:57):
Radioaccess dot org, and anywhere you find great podcasts. History
Hot Dish is produced by the Bismarck Historical Society in
partnership with Dakota Media Access
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