Beulah is known as the center of energy development for western North Dakota. It hums with feverish activity and sees hundreds of workers move in and out with their families year by year. In the early days of the century, however, Beulah was just another raw prairie town with a little coal mining and a lot of farming. The few Catholics in the community were mostly Germans from Russia. In 1915 P.S. Chaffee donated $500 and a piece of land for a church. The frame building was also paid for by donations from the Extension Society. For some years after 1915, mission priests came to Beulah periodically. One of those who came most often was Fr. Bonaventure Goebel, the Benedictine chaplain of St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck. In 1921, the Precious Blood Fathers, an Ohio-based society of priests dedicated to ministry in poor and remote rural congregations, came to North Dakota to work. Bishop Wehrle asked them to staff all the parishes along old Highway 7, which is now Highway 200. From 1921 to 1948, Beulah was served as a mission by the pastor of Hazen. After the Second World War, the Catholic population here warranted a resident priest, so Fr. Raymond Guillozet, C.P.P.S. came to stay. During his time as pastor, the parish built a rectory. With the building of Garrison Dam in 1952, Beulah began to feel the impact of the energy industry. In the 1970’s, huge new coal fired electric generation plants rose near town as well as the nation’s first synthetic fuels plant. All of this changed the character of the town and the parish tremendously. Instead of being a mostly German background group, the parish was now a very diverse group of people, growing rapidly. Probably the most dramatic growth took place in the decade 1973 to 1983. In 1973, there were 140 families belonging to the parish; in 1983, there were no less than 373. The difficult side of this kind of energy growth, however, is that it tends to fluctuate widely. Institutions must build for the greatest expansion, but this is often followed by declining numbers. Fr. Harold Roth was pastor of St. Joseph’s from 1970 to 1981. By 1977 he could see that a new church building was imperative. A building committee, headed by George Koppi and Edward Morman, planned and built a $650,000 steel building which seats over 500 people. The new church has a stone-like front and it seemed adequate for the present needs. It was a sign of the vigor of the parishioners of St. Joseph that the big debt was paid off by 1984. 1984 marked another milestone for Beulah. The Precious Blood Fathers left the parish and it was reassumed by the Diocese of Bismarck. Beulah is still situated on the boundary between agriculture and explosive industrial development.