The Seven Feathers Casino Resort of Oregon celebrated 25 years in business last week. The tribe that owns and operates it, the Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe, marked the 35th anniversary since it received federal recognition, which allowed the casino to be built.
Today the 1,750-member tribe owns a casino that is visited by 1 million people each year. The operation started as a modest Cow Creek Bingo Hall in 1992. Today it operates hundreds of slots machines, is next door to a 300-room hotel, sports an art gallery, spa, convention center and several restaurants—all next to a large RV park.
Although Congress recognized the tribe in 1992 and paid it a $ 1.5 million land settlement, which it used to buy the land where the casino now sits. The land had formerly been the Evergreen Motel. The tribe considered many possible business opportunities, but settled on bingo. The bingo was so successful that the note on the land was paid off within three years.
They expanded into an actual casino with 36 slot machines and then, after 1996, added a hotel and expanded the casino by 400 percent. A new gaming compacted allowed the addition of table games.
In 2001 the tribe added 17,000 square feet, to bring the casino up to 80,000 square feet. Four years later the RV park was expanded from 32 spaces to 194 and in 2006 the hotel was more than doubled in size to its current number of 300 rooms.
