California’s Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians has released plans of a new casino resort and conference center in Jamestown. The opening is planned for late 2023.
According to the tribe the casino will be built nearer to Highway 108 than its existing Chicken Ranch Casino, which will continue to operate while the new project is ongoing.
Tribal Chairman Lloyd Mathiesen declared, “We have taken a careful and calculated strategy in growing our business to meet the needs of our guests throughout the region with the thrill and escape of gaming and great food, but the idea of a resort was always in the back of our minds.”
The tribe, which currently has 43 members, entered gaming with a bingo hall in 1985 and has renovated and introduced new iterations several times since. It added slot machines in 2000, renovated in 2011, and expanded in 2019 with table games, an event hall, café and 350 new machines. It also purchased the historic Jamestown Hotel that same year. The new project will increase the number of slots from 603 to 900 and the hotel will be nine stories with an as yet undisclosed number of rooms.
The new resort is intended to leverage the tribe’s ability to draw on tourism to the Yosemite National Park, especially the lack of lodging in the area.
Mathiesen said, “We’ve all seen the tourist and transient dollars pass through our community over the years. It just makes sense to offer those people the opportunity to stay awhile.” It will, he said, also add hundreds of new jobs to the area.
Construction should begin this summer. Part of the project will be completing a roundabout on Highway 108 in coordination with Caltrans. This will reduce traffic on Chicken Ranch Road.
