North Dakota Business and Economic Development

Women made up 36 percent of the total walk-ins who registered at Job Service North Dakota in June.

It turns out that North Dakota’s population boom is not nearly as large as these two other moments in history.

In a handful of states, the unemployment rate has fallen well below its recession-era apex, home values are up and the median income has risen. And no state has recovered better than North Dakota.

And at 97.4 deaths per 100,000 workers, the state’s construction fatality rate was nearly 10 times the national rate for that industry, according to the report.

"North Dakota is one of the leaders and a model that we point to."

"It was sad to see," Sanford says. "They were trying to get things to happen … but you couldn’t force people to live here. There had to be a draw. There had to be a reason."

Watford City now has a reason: Billions of dollars of oil in the shale under the ground.

Forget the North Dakota energy boom. How about a drone boom?

A company official who specializes in radioactive waste says North Dakota risks becoming a superfund clean up site unless it takes decisive steps to deal with radioactive waste from Bakken oil production.

North Dakota still lacks Mount Rushmore, but it has something even better: oil.

"I think they are optimistic the oil boom will be around for the next 20 years because of the different levels of oil they now have access to through fracking," Winter added. "I just don’t know with the weather that many people who are working in the oil fields will stay for more than a couple years."