He's helping build a new Whiteclay.
Sam O'Rourke, a 43-year-old Lakota entrepreneur, owns the contracting company that's moving dirt and pouring concrete for a Family Dollar here.
He's also considering launching a storage business of his own in Whiteclay, assuming the beer stores remain closed and other commercial development follows.
"If they keep the alcohol out, I think there's potential to bring some business," he says. "Whiteclay is prime property."
Unrestricted by the reservation's limits on property ownership, O'Rourke, 43, sees potential for Pine Ridge entrepreneurs to launch businesses in Whiteclay, whose main customers would be their own people. That could grow Whiteclay into an incorporated town with local ordinances, its own law enforcement and stable infrastructure.
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He's ambivalent about the beer stores themselves, he says.
However, "We can't go backward."
O'Rourke
