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.

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.

For the past five years, Lawrey worked for XTO Energy as a drilling consultant. “I think they’re going to keep me on,” Lawrey said in March. But that’s not how things shook out. Lawrey worked his last day for the company on April 21. He is now working full-time for a friend’s excavating company. “I’m kind of enjoying the break from the oil field, to be honest,” he says.

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Although drillers and their supervisors are the ones most affected by the slowdown, the livelihoods of those who sell equipment to the oil field have also diminished in recent months.