Pine Ridge gets a stoplight

PINE RIDGE, S.D. -- Almost 125 years after Oglala Sioux Chief Red Cloud refused to sign a treaty with the federal government to allow a road through Indian territory, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation will get its first stoplight.

'The Pine Ridge reservation will remain the land of Chief Red Cloud, but it will have a stoplight,' Mayor G. Wayne Tapio said Wednesday.

The stoplight will be placed in the center of Pine Ridge at highways 407 and 18.

The village in southwestern South Dakota has a population of 5,000 and Tapio said traffic from outlying communities 'makes rush hour risky.'

'We are progressing and we have to grow with the flow of traffic,' Tapio said.