In North Dakota, Homegrown Opportunity Emerges From Post-Boom Oilfields

TIOGA, North Dakota—Jon Person grew up on the ranch where his family for a century raised livestock and grew corn along White Earth River’s meanders and oxbows while harvesting fields of wheat and oats knitted into the undulating prairie. White Earth was once a bustling Dakota Territory outpost at the literal end of the line, he said, the terminus of a Northern Pacific rail spur with nothing beyond it but a sprawl of sky and space stretching to Saskatchewan. Two presidents, including a young Teddy Roosevelt, stayed here when the town had a hotel, but all that was a long time ago, said Mr. Person, 48. Trains still roll through White Earth, he said, but they don’t stop there anymore....