In 1928, a group of Minot laboring citizen (mostly railroad men) began to investigate the possibilities of organizing a cooperative oil company. They had been trying to operate a cooperative store and when it became a stock company instead of a cooperative and failed, the original promoters began to look at the very high margins in petroleum products. They found that gasoline cost 4 cents per gallon plus 7 cents freight and that it was selling for 25 cents to 27 cents per gallon. This group…