“Oh, we haven’t gambled any,” one of them told us. During our two hours in the casino on opening day, the only locals we recognized were a pair of friendly, elderly women wearing “Clay-Cherokee Senior Games” T-shirts. We are nine-year Cherokee County residents (after retiring from media in Atlanta) and are involved in church and non-profit activities. The locals’ embrace seems lukewarm at best. Opening day at the 90,000-square-foot gaming room of Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River and Casino near Murphy in western North Carolina, photographed from halfway up the escalator to the 300-room hotel. Cherokee County has a 17.8 percent poverty rate and a per capita income ($18,340 in 2013 dollars) about a third of the national rate. Only time will tell whether being home to an Indian gaming casino is good rural strategy for a western North Carolina county of 27,141. He paused for a moment and then added: “The Cherokee have been running casinos for eighteen years and they know how to analyze.” Rural North Carolina and Indian Gaming “You just look at the size of your building and the number of spaces you have, and then know how many to expect and how many to let in.” Robinson was asked, did you expect a crowd this large today? Are you geographically confused enough now? For the time being at least, Robinson is also calling the shots at this new tribal facility (and first North Carolina casino outside a reservation) located 57 miles to the southwest near Murphy, here in Cherokee County. This Brooks Robinson is senior vice president and general manager of the 18-year-old Cherokee Casino Resort in the Qualla Boundary reservation’s Town of Cherokee near the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He’s not the former Baltimore Orioles third baseman (“although I’ve played some third base in my time,” he said). Because cloudy skies threatened and crowds were building, Harrah’s officials cut the ribbon 45 minutes early, said Brooks Robinson. traffic was backed up for miles along the four-lane U.S. The response was so overwhelming that by 1:30 p.m.

Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Casino and Hotel officially opened Monday (September 28) at a low-mountaintop site on 90 acres of tribal trust land just east of the little county-seat town of 1,618 souls. The pace of life in and around Murphy, North Carolina, had quickened. In an atmosphere closed and darkened and tinged with cigarette smoke, the undercurrents of energy and excitement are almost touchable. Sounds overwhelm the senses: a multitude of excited voices, background music, the clanging of bells, and the ringing, beeping cacophony that signals a run of luck for somebody.

Cherokee river valley casino reopening