He was best known for buying farm fields around Interstate 65 and U.S. 30 and erecting a Holiday Inn and business offices known as the Twin Towers during the early 1970s. Later that same decade, he expanded his holdings into Star Plaza Theater and Radisson Hotel and conference center.

White is widely credited with transforming Merrillville and Hobart into a retail mecca after building a Holiday Inn, now the Radisson at Star Plaza, amid cornfields in 1969. His son Bruce White built the Holiday Star Theatre, now the Star Plaza, which was the largest theater in Indiana and the second largest in the Chicago area at the time, drawing as many as 500,000 visitors to Northwest Indiana a year. Both will be torn down next year to make room for a new hotel at U.S. 30 and Interstate 65.

He told The Times he envisioned turning the once rural area into "the Main Street of Lake County."

Bill Wellman, 92, a lifelong friend of White, worked closely with White through their time at Whiteco Industries. Wellman handled public relations.