"This is a tale of two Indian tribes.

Both are tiny and poor. Both signed the same treaty 153 years ago, giving away the land where Seattle and King County now sit.

And both, this month, have built something new for the first time in generations.

I went out to the first the other night and was stopped by a line of stretch Hummer limos. Women in cocktail dresses stepped from the limos, joking about "catching a whale." Men trailed behind, smoking fat cigars.

After 150 years in a legal and financial wilderness, the Snoqualmie Indians have opened a 170,000-square-foot casino.

It has strained the tribe and put it into massive debt. Yet it is a remarkable achievement that it exists at all. Follow signs to "Snoqualmie Indian Reservation," and when you get there you realize nobody lives there. The entire reservation is the casino.

That's because the Snoqualmies never got their promised reservation — not until 2006. Only in 1999 did the federal government give the Snoqualmies official tribe status."

Get the Story:
Danny Westneat: For tribes, disparity lives on (The Seattle Times 11/9)