Sue Sitter/PCT Jon Proesch of Rugby’s Envision Cooperative, center, breaks ground at the site of a new gas station display to be installed on the grounds of Prairie Village Museum. From left are Museum Director Shane Engeland, Board Vice President Steve Dockter, Proesch, Rick Larson, and Museum Board President Dave Bednarz.

Rugby’s Prairie Village Museum will soon add a replica gas station to give visitors a glimpse of small-town life on the North Dakota plains in the first half of the twentieth century.

Museum Director Shane Engeland said the display was funded with a grant from Rugby’s Envision Cooperative and Cenex given before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2019 grant totaled $15,000. Half of the amount came from Envision Cooperative and Cenex before CoBank contributed the other half to match their contribution. Former Museum Director Stephanie Steinke received a check for the contribution at a steak fry in July 2019.

Envision Cooperatives and Cenex are energy brands for CHS Inc.

Engeland, who took the helm as museum director earlier this year, said, “We’ve been collecting funds and building up resources to try to build a small mock gas station here so we can move some of our more automotive-themed items in there.”

The project is one of several slated in 2022 for the museum. Other work includes completing a facade for the museum’s front buildings and creating pumpkin patch, which will open in October.

Funding sources for the work include the 2019 grant from Cenex Cooperative/Envision and Cobank.

England teamed up with Museum Board Vice President Steve Dockter to start work on the gas station.

Dockter, who retired recently from his post as CEO of Rugby’s Envision co-op, devotes lots of his time now to projects on the museum grounds.

“We’ve got a bunch of old cars,” said Dockter, who owns a classic car himself. “We’ve got a lot of neat stuff and we don’t have a gas station here. And every little town in North Dakota had a Farmers Union gas station when I was growing up.

“I just thought that it would be a good representation for our company,” he said.

“We had funding available through the different foundations we were a part of,” he noted, adding funds for the project “were pretty easy to come up with.”

Engeland said of the project , “Ideally, it will be a nice place to display our nice remodeled gas pumps and have an awning so people can park their vehicles under it. They can have some photo opportunities and make some more use out of some of the items we have.

“The gas pumps are antiques,” he added. “They’ve been at the front of our Lions building for quite some time now.”

Jon Proesch, Rugby Envision’s current CEO said the company was glad to contribute the funds to kick-start the gas station project.

“The co-op system’s been around for years and that’s what got all the farmers started,” he said. “Bringing some of that history back would be great for the museum.”

“It’s part of our history — gas stations and fuel,” he added.

Dockter noted, “Rural communities can always apply for CHS foundational monies. That’s where some of this came from (in the museum).

“I’ve got an old horse-drawn tank wagon that I’d like to get repainted into the period,” Dockter said of a piece contributed with help from Envision in the 1980s to celebrate North Dakota’s centennial. “It was what they used to deliver kerosene with a horse, way back when.”

He said many items at the museum come from Envision. Some still bear Envision’s former name, Farmers Union Oil.

Dockter said of the gas pump display, “It will have the old Farmers Union symbol on it. They were all Farmers Union Oil companies back in the ’40s and ’50s back in the day.

“Cenex wasn’t even a thing back then, although they did have some Cenex brand lubricants,” he added.

Dockter estimated the gas pumps and display would be finished by fall.