"With little to lose and much to gain, the Bay Mills Indian Community has opened a mini-casino in Vanderbilt, a village on Interstate 75 north of Gaylord, without federal or state approval.

If the play in Vanderbilt succeeds, the tribe will convert the old Port Huron post office on Military Street into a temporary casino with 1,500 slot machines.

Eventually, Bay Mills intends to build a permanent casino and luxury hotel at Desmond Landing, where the tribe owns 16.5 acres. This parcel would become the first Indian reservation in Port Huron since the 1830s when federal troops forcibly removed the Blackwater band of the Chippewa to Kansas.

A casino-hotel also would anchor a development blueprint put together by Port Huron philanthropist Jim Acheson. He has spent nearly $200 million out of his own pocket with a goal of creating thousands of jobs in the downtown of a struggling city with an unemployment rate of 25%.

The Bush administration opposed Bay Mills' plans, and there is nothing to suggest the Obama administration views a casino any more favorably."

Get the Story:
Editorial: We cheer for Bay Mills to win at last (The Port Huron Times Herald 11/28)

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