North Star Filling station adverstisement, woman fills car with gas, N.D.

"Gasoline sales would double, triple, and quadruple if all service stations would equip their pumps with pretty attendants like these." "'Gasoline sales would double, triple, and quadruple if all service stations would equip their pumps with attendants like pretty Sammy Porter,' so read the cutline beneath this photograph, originally printed at the top of page one of the Williston Plains Reporter's October 14, 1965 issue. 'Tanks would remain full and almost no one would ever run out,' the story continued. This was the first Oil Progress Issue of the Reporter during Williston's first oil boom when oilmen and Williston businessmen banded together to support this special project. Sammy Porter was filling the car with North Star Gasoline, which had just been refined at the Williston Basin Refinery from North Dakota crude oil. This was the first such gasoline sold at retail in Williston and the special occasion was the grand opening of the North Star station, at Main and First Street." ; Film negatives; 4 x 6 in. ; "N Star girl fills car with gas at North Star Filling Station probably Oil Progress week promo"--Handwritten on envelope containing negatives ; Title created by staff. ; William E. "Bill" Shemorry was a native of Williston, N.D. who began work in the newspaper industry as a newsboy selling the Williston Herald and the Williams County Farmers Press. In 1953, he started to publish the Williston Plains Reporter, which he operated for 25 years before selling to the Williston Herald. Shemorry then began to concentrate on his own writing and photography. In addition to writing many books on the history of Williams County, he also collected photographs of early North Dakota photographers. Shemorry was an active member of the Williston Fire Department, was Civil Defense Chief of Williams County for three years in the 1950's, and was a combat photographer in World War II. Shemorry's photograph of the discovery of oil in North Dakota on April 4, 1951 at the Clarence Iverson No. 1 is one of the most famous oil ...