MDU Resources history

In 1926, Heskett bought 80 acres of land near Cabin Creek, in eastern Montana, and drilled for natural gas.

1930: Company buys Montana Cities Gas Company, Northern Natural Gas Development Company, and the manufactured gas properties at Sheridan, Wyoming.

In 1935, Minnesota Northern was faced with another type of threat when Congress passed the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHC), which limited utility holding companies to one operating subsidiary.

In the summer of 1947, Montana-Dakota began storing gas for winter usage in Carter Oil Company's Billy Creek Field south of Buffalo, Wyoming.

Rather than exploit the oil themselves, Montana-Dakota executives signed a net proceeds agreement with Shell Western E & P. Shell Western operated the company's 90,000-acre leased properties, which by 1958 were producing more than 860,000 barrels and paying $300,000 to Montana-Dakota.

Completed in 1959 for $12 million, Lewis & Clark was succeeded a scant two years later by groundbreaking on a $10.5 million, 66,000-kilowatt addition to Heskett Station.

In 1965, Mid-Continent members agreed to build a 5,400-mile grid of high-voltage transmission lines across a state region, enabling members and others to buy and sell excess capacity.

Two years after R.M. Heskett's death in 1966, David Heskett moved the company headquarters from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Bismarck, North Dakota.

To satisfy electric demand, in 1969 David Heskett and officials of Minnesota's Otter Tail Power Company and South Dakota's Northwestern Public Service Company announced a joint venture to construct a 400,000-kilowatt, lignite-powered generating station near Big Stone Lake in eastern South Dakota.

1971: Company joins Minnesota's Otter Tail Power Company and South Dakota's Northwestern Public Service Company to construct a 400,000-kilowatt, lignite-powered generating station near Big Stone Lake in eastern South Dakota.

The major event of 1972 was the Rapid City, South Dakota flood.

In 1977, Montana-Dakota and four regional partners announced that they would build a 410,000-kilowatt, lignite-powered generating station at Beulah, North Dakota.

He retired several older plants and in 1985 acquired further shares of the Big Stone and Coyote generating stations.

In 1992, Prairielands began using the natural gas futures market.

In 1996 the subsidiary acquired two new companies, with properties in Texas, New Mexico, and Alabama.

To better express its broadened business concerns, the subsidiary dropped the reference to coal mining in its name in 1997, becoming Knife River Corporation.

By the end of 1999, it had acquired four more construction materials businesses, including Oregon-based Morse Bros. and JTL Group, which expanded Knife River's operations into Montana and Wyoming.

In 2000, it purchased nine additional companies in California, Oregon, Montana, and Alaska.