In a field of brittle yellow grass and clotted mud about five miles north of Dickinson, North Dakota, stands a cemetery of sorts. Drilling rigs stretch into the sky like tall skeletons. The occasional lone truck rattles along a dirt road. Otherwise, the location is deserted.

Similar graveyards have been popping up across the western half of the state since the price of oil sharply declined last fall. These once-great moneymakers that drew thousands to the state are now idle, or “stacked,” in the lingo of the oil fields. As more and more companies have stopped drilling following the decline in the price of oil last year, the term has become all too familiar.

During the good times, jobs were plentiful and businesses prospered. High-school graduates earned six-figure salaries in the oil fields, and cash flowed into the hands of those lucky enough to own the mineral rights to land rich with oil. North Dakota’s sudden success coincided with an economic slump in the rest of the country; job seekers rushed to the state fleeing hard times. For seven straight years, North Dakota boasted the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Early this year, it slipped from that coveted spot.

Though many native North Dakotans remembered the oil bust in the late 1980s, this time it was easy to believe that the boom would last. “Your grandchildren’s grandchildren will be working in the Bakken,” Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, said in October. Just over a year ago, North Dakota was producing more than one million barrels of oil per day, more than any state but Texas. This time around, it seemed, things would be different.

But as soon as the price of oil dropped late last year, things began to unravel, and rigs started to close. Of the 192 drilling rigs active in April of 2014, just 94 were open one year later.

View photos Two pumpjacks pull oil from the ground in western North Dakota. (Mara Van Ells) More

Charlie Cogdill, an agent for Halliburton, has been through four oil busts over the course of his career. He describes drilling as “the tip of the spear,” the first part of the industry to be affected by the slowdown. A downturn in oil prices produces a ripple effect that spreads from drilling to fracking, from the workers on the rigs to the small communities where those workers live.

What will happen to those who uprooted themselves and their families to move here? What will happen to the towns that suddenly flourished? What will happen to those who pinned their dreams on the North Dakota oil boom?

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Early this spring, 16 miles east of a town called Watford City, Dallas Lawrey watched from his trailer as one of his last drilling rigs was taken apart piece by piece.

The bust hit the drilling industry the hardest. As more and more drilling rigs stack, more and more men like Lawrey worry that they won’t be able to hang onto their jobs.

At high noon, the rig buzzed with activity. Men wearing steel-toed boots, clear safety goggles, and mud-splattered hard hats were everywhere, driving trucks and moving machinery. A team hosed down and cleaned the rig before it was stacked as an extra safety consultant watched to ensure protocol was followed while the rig was disassembled. Just beside a dirty, frayed American flag, another flag—a white one, bearing the name of the drilling company Nabors—flapped in the wind. The crew took down the flag of XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, after they learned the company was idling the rig.

Lawrey, a long-time resident of Dickinson, North Dakota, worked in the oil fields most of his adult life and is the main provider for his family. His wife, Sara, works as a secretary for the private Catholic elementary school his two youngest children attend, earning them discounted tuition but little else. The family moved into a spacious new home five years ago, which they have yet to finish paying off. Lawrey recently bought Sara a “spendy” new Suburban.

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