Despite a petition drive that gathered 1,800 signatures against it, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke recently approved the Shawnee Tribe’s application to take 102.98 acres of land in Guymon, Texas County, Oklahoma into federal trust where the 2,500-member tribe has proposed building a 42,309 square foot gaming facility. At the signing ceremony, Zinke said, “One of my top priorities for the Department of the Interior is to make tribal sovereignty meaningful, and that includes providing the basis for tribes to build and strengthen their economies. This is a historic opportunity for a tribe and a nation to re-bond for the land and the water and their future. This gaming facility will create 200 jobs and bring in $30 million annually to the tribe.”
Shawnee Tribe Chief Ron Sparkman added, “We’ve worked hard to set ourselves on the path to a better future, and this project will help us achieve our goals of tribal self-sufficiency through economic progress.” Landless for more than160 years, the federally recognized tribe’s proposed gaming site is located approximately 370 miles west of its headquarters in Miami, Ottawa County, Oklahoma.
Other Oklahoma tribes, including the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, the Miami Tribe, the Modoc Tribe, the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma, the Peoria Tribe of Indians, the Quapaw Tribe, the Seneca-Cayuga Nation and the Wyandotte Nation supported Zinke’s approval.
The tribe possessed a 1.6 million acre reservation in Kansas until the 1854 Treaty of Washington, which distributed 200,000 acres to individual Native Americans and opened the remainder of the land to non-Indian settlement. In 1869, Shawnee tribal members in Kansas were moved by the U.S. Government to present-day Oklahoma but they were not given any land.
In 2000, Congress passed the Shawnee Status Act, reaffirming the tribe’s federally recognized status and confirming its eligibility to have land acquired in trust. Under the act, the tribe only can acquire trust land in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
The Golden Mesa Casino will offer a 42,309 square foot gaming floor, a restaurant, retail space and offices for the Shawnee Tribe Gaming Commission. The project will be a joint venture between the Shawnee Tribe and Global Gaming Solutions, which will manage it.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin stated, “I concur with the Secretary of the Interior’s determination that the Shawnee Tribe’s proposal will provide economic development to the Guymon and surrounding area. This will also benefit the Shawnee Tribe in helping it develop a funding source as it works toward self-determination and self-governance.”
U.S. Congressman Tom Cole commented, “Federally recognized tribes should be able thrive and serve as steadfast contributors to our economy, and I am confident that the Shawnee Tribe will do so with their proposal. Indian Country has been successful in exercising its sovereignty through its enterprises and this proposal is a clear example of that right.”
