BEATTY — Ed Ringle has big ideas for the small enclave of Beatty. He also has the land and water to see those ideas to fruition — a rarity in the driest state in the nation with the least percentage of private land.

The 73-year-old is perhaps most recognizable as the baby face and namesake of the EddieWorld gas station in Beatty and Yermo, California, halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Memorials to, or reminders of, Ringle’s big ideas can be found throughout the town of Beatty, from the unfinished steampunk Exchange Club casino to a sign for “El Sueño,” or “The Dream” in Spanish — another casino he never got around to building.

But one recent construction project has caught the attention of state regulators and ruffled more than a few feathers in the community, which is at the h

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