In the first decade of the 2000s, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (a group of Indian tribes in the U.S. state of Oregon) sought to build a casino in the Columbia River Gorge . They ended their pursuit of the project in 2013. [1] They considered various sites, as early as 1999; the most extensive plan called for a 60-acre (24 ha) facility with 250 hotel rooms in Cascade Locks, Oregon. The proposed site is within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, and adjacent to a federally designated wilderness area, but within the city limits of Cascade Locks. (The Columbia River National Scenic Area specifically exempts economic development projects within city limits and supports such growth for cities on both sides of the Columbia River).
The plan, which was opposed by Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, but supported by the City of Cascade Locks, and the government of Hood River County, [2] must be approved by the United States Department of the Interior, and would be the first (or seventh [3] ) off-reservation casino in the state. [2]
The Siletz tribe advocated for an off-reservation casino in Troutdale as early as 1992, drawing opposition from then-governor Barbara Roberts. [4]
As early as 1998, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs owned property in Hood River, and were entertaining controversial plans to open a casino there or in Cascade Locks. The Warm Springs tribes have operated the Kah-Nee-Ta resort since the 1960s; that resort, located 11 miles from Highway 26, is not very accessible to Portland metropolitan area, leading the tribes to seek a more lucrative location.
Then-governor John Kitzhaber opposed the plans, on two principles: that each tribe should have only one casino, and that tribal casinos should be on tribal trust land established before the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. [5] Federal law gave Kitzhaber the power to deny the tribe the Cascade Locks location, because it had not been held in trust prior to the 1988 law. He had no such power over the Hood River site or other land the tribes had held for a longer period of time. [6]
Kitzhaber ultimately overruled the Cascade Locks location, [6] but the issue overshadowed the 2002 gubernatorial election of Ted Kulongoski. The tribes made record political contributions during that election. Kulongoski, who took no position on the issue during the election, received $40,000 for his campaign from Indian tribes. [7]
In 2001, the Confederated Tribes purchased an additional 120 acres (0.49 km2) of land east of the city of Hood River, adjoining 40 acres (160,000 m2) it already owned. [8] The Confederated Tribes then pursued two separate plans for casinos in the gorge until 2004: one in Cascade Locks, the other on the Hood River property. [9] The Hood River plan, which would have called for an eight-story casino, was opposed by Hood River residents. [10] Hood River County Commissioner Carol York was also a strong advocate of the Cascade Locks location, rather than the Hood River location. [10]
The project has the support of Oregon Congressman Greg Walden (R), who represents this area in Congress.[ citation needed ] Also publicly supporting the project is Oregon Senator Ted Ferrioli (R) and former Oregon Governors Vic Atiyeh (R) and Ted Kulongoski (D).[ citation needed ]
Kulongoski and the Warm Springs tribe entered an agreement in 2005 permitting the plans to proceed. [11]
Opposition to a casino in Cascade Locks has been led by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, and has included other organizations: the Oregon Restaurant Association, Friends of Columbia Gorge, NoGorgeCasino, a small but vocal group of residents and the Oregon Family Council. Congressman David Wu has also opposed the casino. [12] The Grand Ronde group was the biggest campaign spender in the 2006 gubernatorial primary election, opposing Kulongoski and Kevin Mannix. [13] Grand Ronde, which operates Spirit Mountain Casino, spent over $800,000 in that cycle. [14] In the 2010 gubernatorial race, all four major candidates (including Kitzhaber, who was ultimately reelected that year) announced their opposition to the plan. [11]
The United States Secretary of the Interior would have to approve a casino for it to move forward. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne of the George W. Bush administration generally opposed off-reservation casinos, but did not make a decision; his successor was expected to consider the proposed casino, along with an off-reservation casino in La Center, Washington being proposed by the Cowlitz Tribe. [15] In January 2011 the Interior Department approved a compact between the tribes and the state. [16] The remaining steps as of 2011 would include the demonstration of compliance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and approval from the governor. [16] In 2011, the tribes announced plans to move the Kah-Nee-Ta resort closer to Route 26, as they continued their long-term pursuit of a casino in Cascade Locks. [17]
The Warm Springs tribes ended their pursuit of a casino in the gorge in summer 2013. [1]
Cascade Locks is a city in Hood River County, Oregon, United States. The city took its name from a set of locks built to improve navigation past the Cascades Rapids of the Columbia River. The U.S. federal government approved the plan for the locks in 1875, construction began in 1878, and the locks were completed on November 5, 1896. The locks were subsequently submerged in 1938, replaced by Bonneville Lock and Dam, although the city lost no land from the expansion of Lake Bonneville behind the dam some 4 miles (6 km) downstream of the city. The city population was 1,144 at the 2010 census.
Chinookan peoples include several groups of Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States who speak the Chinookan languages. Since at least 4000 BCE Chinookan peoples have resided along the Lower and Middle Columbia River (Wimahl) from the river's gorge downstream (west) to the river's mouth, and along adjacent portions of the coasts, from Tillamook Head of present-day Oregon in the south, north to Willapa Bay in southwest Washington. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Chinook Tribe on the lower Columbia.
The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) deep, the canyon stretches for over eighty miles (130 km) as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range, forming the boundary between the state of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south. Extending roughly from the confluence of the Columbia with the Deschutes River in the east down to the eastern reaches of the Portland metropolitan area, the water gap furnishes the only navigable route through the Cascades and the only water connection between the Columbia Plateau and the Pacific Ocean. It is thus that the routes of Interstate 84, U.S. Route 30, Washington State Route 14, and railroad tracks on both sides run through the gorge.
The Warm Springs Indian Reservation consists of 1,019 square miles (2,640 km2) in north-central Oregon, in the United States, and is governed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
The Kalapuya are a Native American ethnic group, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Valley of present-day western Oregon in the United States, an area bounded by the Cascade Range to the east, the Oregon Coast Range at the west, the Columbia River at the north, to the Calapooya Mountains of the Umpqua River at the south.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are the federally recognized confederations of three Sahaptin-speaking Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited the Columbia River Plateau region: the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla.
The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the world. Horseshoe in shape, it is 1,500 feet (460 m) wide and 40 feet (12 m) high with a flow of 30,849 cu ft/s, located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette's mouth. Willamette Falls is a culturally significant site for many tribal communities in the region.
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) consists of twenty-seven Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day western Oregon between the western boundary of the Oregon Coast and the eastern boundary of the Cascade Range, and the northern boundary of southwestern Washington and the southern boundary of northern California. The community has an 11,288-acre (45.7 km2) Indian reservation, the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation, which was established in 1855 in Yamhill and Polk counties.
Kah-Nee-Ta Resort & Spa was a resort in central Oregon, United States, on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, near the community of Warm Springs in Jefferson County. It closed on 5 September 2018, laying off all its employees. It is planned to reopen in the summer of 2023.
Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs living in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation living in the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington.
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is a recognized Native American tribe made of three tribes who put together a confederation. They currently live on and govern the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht, also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco and two Wishram. In 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.
Interstate 84 (I-84) in the U.S. state of Oregon is a major Interstate Highway that traverses the state from west to east. It is concurrent with U.S. Route 30 (US 30) for most of its length and runs 376 miles (605 km) from an interchange with I-5 in Portland to the Idaho state line near Ontario. The highway roughly follows the Columbia River and historic Oregon Trail in northeastern Oregon, and is designated as part of Columbia River Highway No. 2 and all of the Old Oregon Trail Highway No. 6; the entire length is also designated as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway. I-84 intersects several of the state's main north–south roads, including US 97, US 197, I-82, and US 395.
The 2002 Oregon gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 2002. Incumbent Democratic Governor of Oregon John Kitzhaber was unable to seek a third consecutive term as governor, therefore creating an open seat. To replace him, former Oregon Supreme Court Associate Justice Ted Kulongoski won a crowded and competitive Democratic primary, while former State Representative Kevin Mannix emerged from an equally competitive Republican primary. The campaign between Kulongoski and Mannix, who were joined by Libertarian nominee Tom Cox, was close and went down to the wire. Ultimately, Kulongoski eked out a narrow margin of victory over Mannix, which was slightly smaller than Cox's total vote share, allowing Kulongoski to win what would be the first of two terms as governor.
The Tenino people, commonly known today as the Warm Springs bands, are several Sahaptin Native American subtribes which historically occupied territory located in the North-Central portion of the American state of Oregon. The Tenino people included four localized subtribes — the Tygh or "Upper Deschutes" divided in Tayxɫáma, Tiɫxniɫáma and Mliɫáma, the Wyam (Wayámɫáma) (Wayámpam) or "Lower Deschutes", also known as "Celilo Indians", the Dalles Tenino or "Tinainu (Tinaynuɫáma)", also known as "Tenino proper"; and the Dock-Spus (Tukspush) (Takspasɫáma) or "John Day."
Gambling in Oregon relates to the laws, regulations, and authorized forms of gambling.
The culture of Oregon has had a diverse and distinct character from before European settlement until the modern day. Some 80 Native American tribes were living in Oregon before the establishment of European American settlements and ultimately a widespread displacement of the local indigenous tribes. Trappers and traders were the harbingers of the coming migration of Europeans. Many of these settlers traveled along the nationally renowned Oregon Trail, with estimates of around 53,000 using the trail between 1840 and 1850.
The ilani Casino Resort is a casino operated by the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and located near La Center, Washington. The casino opened on April 24, 2017, after a lengthy legal battle over the tribe's right to establish a reservation on which to build the casino.
The Eagle Creek Fire was a destructive wildfire in the Columbia River Gorge, largely in the U.S. state of Oregon, with smaller spot-fires in Washington. The fire was started on September 2, 2017, by a 15-year-old boy igniting fireworks during a burn ban. The fire burned 50,000 acres, and burned for three months, before being declared completely contained. As late as May 29, 2018, it was still found smoldering in some areas.
