Indian Gaming

Columnist explains how a gaming company helped pave the way for the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Colorado:

[I]n an odd way, casinos also helped make it possible for the location of the Sand Creek Massacre -- the swathe of land where at least 150 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribal members were killed on November 29, 1864 -- to become a national historic site.

The location of the massacre, which was lost to history for decades, was ultimately identified by historians, scientists and tribal memories; it was on the property of local rancher William Dawson. The federal government offered Dawson $300,000 for his 1,465-acre ranch, but he declined. Then in April 2002, Jim Druck, then-president of Southwest Casino & Hotel Corp., which ran two casinos for the Cheyenne-Arapahoe tribes in Oklahoma, bought the ranch from Dawson for $1.5 million in April 2002. He deeded it to the tribes, explaining to tribal elders that he was Jewish and "my people were nearly wiped out in Germany and Poland before and during World War II.... I told them I understood their pain and what it means to fight for your heritage."

In 2000, at the urging of then-Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Congress had authorized the creation of the monument; another act was required to place the deeded land in trust so that the National Park Service could manage it in cooperation with the Indian tribes whose ancestors died there. Ari Kelman's excellent book, The Misplaced Massacre, which just won a prestigious Bancroft Prize, describes the history of both the hunt for the massacre site, the quest to make it a historic monument -- and the complicated land deals, which raised the possibilities of a casino in Kiowa County even then.

Get the Story:
Patricia Calhoun: Sand Creek Massacre history to be preserved by gambling? It's happened before (Westword 4/2)