For those of you who don’t know, western North Dakota experienced an oil boom from 2007-2015. Prior to the oil boom, small old one-bedroom apartments here rented for $300/month and the average hourly wage was about $10/hr. By 2011 the same small old one-bedroom apartment rented for $1,200/month and the average hourly wage was about $15/hr.

Partly because it was a rumor that sounded good, and partly because of greedy real estate agents, property owners, business owner, and politicians, the false statement was repeatedly announced on the radio, television, internet, newspapers, and magazines that everyone arriving in North Dakota was making $100K per year, with no education or experience.

People from all over the U.S. came to North Dakota looking for work because of the false $100K/year rumor. From what I saw, heard, read, and experienced working in North Dakota from 2011-2021, the people who came here from out-of-state to find work during the oil boom, 80% of them left within a year. Most of the out-of-state workers found that getting a job, keeping a job, and working at a job was nearly the same thing as where they came from. The hourly wage was 1-1/2 times what they had been making, there was much more overtime required, the working conditions were a little worse, but income taxes, cost of living, and quadrupled rent prices made the whole out-of-state migrant worker thing not worth it.

During the western North Dakota 2007-2015 oil boom, the majority of out-of-state license plates on vehicles in this area were Idaho plates, followed by Washington state. Tied for third most common out-of-state license plates were probably Utah and Oregon. Idaho had many unemployed or under-employed able-bodied young male workers experienced in operating farm equipment, driving tractor trucks, and working in all of the construction trades. Same thing in Utah as in Idaho. In Washington state, the economy was bad, and there were a bunch of no-good, drug-addict, ADHD dirt-bags who came from Seattle to North Dakota to get in the way, not show up for work, steal, and continue their drug use.

The fourth most common out-of-state license plate during the North Dakota 2007-2015 oil boom was probably Texas. Texas was experiencing its own almost identical oil boom during this time. One of the reasons why there were so many Texas license plates on trucks here in North Dakota was because the oil companies, service companies, and suppliers were moving personnel around through Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and North Dakota as needed.

What drove or caused the 2007-2015 U.S. oil boom was the price of oil being over $100/barrel. In 2015 when the price of oil fell below $60/barrel, and stayed there, that brought about the end of the U.S. oil boom. From 2015-2018, I estimate that about 30,000 workers left North Dakota. That might not seem like a lot, but the entire population of North Dakota is only about 750,000 people.

Since 2018, people living in western North Dakota have come to the realization that the oil boom is over, and there has been a slow, sometimes bumpy, sometimes reluctant return to normalcy. One of the “bumps”, has been idiot people, especially real estate agents, trying to sell houses that no one wants, no one needs, and no one has the money for, for twice the amount of money that they are worth, as if there is still an oil boom going on.

One of the other things that is holding up the return to calm, settling down, and normalcy, is the obnoxious reject people from Texas still coming up here. The grunge dirt-bag drug-addict ADHD people from Washington state have quit coming, the gypsies from Michigan have quit coming, and these two states are less than 1,000 miles away. Texas is 1,200 miles away, why do these people keep coming up here?

The answer is, the people who can’t get a job anywhere in Texas, can’t find anywhere to live in Texas, they figure that they will drive up here to North Dakota and nobody will notice that there is something wrong with them, that they are stupid, incompetent, and that they don’t know how to act right.

Whenever I go someplace in Dickinson, and I see someone doing something really stupid, abnormal, rude, inconsiderate, obnoxious, which makes me wonder what is wrong with them, I kind of hang back, watch them, see what vehicle they go to when they get ready to leave, and here we go, they just keep walking closer and closer to that vehicle with the Texas license plate, I knew it!, white trash from Texas!

In the past couple of weeks when I have been driving on rural two-lane Highway 22 outside of Dickinson, which has very light traffic compared to what it used to be, I try to not get over 70 mph because that seems to be the cut-off point that the North Dakota Highway Patrol will tolerate. I know from years and years of driving each section of Highway 22, where the Highway Patrol vehicles park on the side of the road, on the other side of hills, at turn-outs. Several times recently, someone has passed me going 80 mph, right where I know the Highway Patrol often hide, and as they pass me I see that Texas license plate.

Sunday afternoon I was driving south on rural two-lane Highway 85 coming into the very small town of Amidon. The speed limit drops down to 45 mph as you approach Amidon, and then the speed limit is 25 mph for 1/2 mile through the town of Amidon. When I slowed down to 45 mph, the silver Honda Accord behind me quickly pulled into the oncoming traffic lane, and sped up past me, all the way through Amidon where the speed limit is 25 mph. Yup, it was people from Texas.

The same thing happened when I was driving through the very small town of Regent on Saturday afternoon. All the way through downtown Regent, the speed limit is 25 mph. A silver Toyota Tundra had to pass me in downtown Regent, and as it went past me I saw that Texas license plate.

There is a reason why all of the small towns in western North Dakota have a speed limit of 25 mph through downtown, they don’t want there to be any vehicle or pedestrian accidents, and there is no reason to be speeding through downtown. But the people from Texas are ignorant white trash.

For the past month, whenever I have seen something abnormal happening, the majority of the time it has been someone from Texas. I am very thoroughly convinced that the reject people from Texas come up here to North Dakota because things were not working out for them in Texas, because they are stupid. So keep an eye out for people with Texas license plates in North Dakota.