MOCCASIN, Ariz. – Predictions of gloom and doom abounded. Some of the members of the Kaibab Band of Paiutes on this lonely stretch of Arizona highway north of the Grand Canyon even called for the tribe to disband after its Pipe Springs Casino went under seven years ago.
After all, this was one of those strange anomalies. In a landscape full of wildly successful gaming stories from the nation’s reservations, the Kaibab-Paiutes were one of only a handful of tribes that couldn’t make it work.
But, shed no tears for the 250 members of the tribe. There is life after slot machines.
A sparkling new, more-than-$1 million, tribal government and community center just opened after years of lobbying for grants. The Kaibab-Paiutes have tapped into tourism by building a museum and visitors’ center which links with the national Park Service’s Pipe Springs National Monument, a frontier Mormon fort and settlement.
The tribe’s big-game hunting business in the nearby hills is flourishing. A tribally owned gas station and convenience store is doing marquee business along Arizona Highway 389, near the site of the old casino. Business has been so good, tribal Chairwoman Carmen Bradley’s two young daughters opened a snow cone stand next door.
And, the tribe is positioning itself, after a $900,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for rural economic development, to be a regional provider for high-speed Internet access in northwestern Arizona and southwestern Utah.
Bradley still clearly remembers all the sad faces when she took over as the tribe’s leader a month after the casino closed in September 1996. The Kaibab-Paiutes had tried to keep the casino afloat by cutting back the number of slot machines from 110 to 75. But even that wasn’t enough to stay in business and the casino shut its doors two years after opening.
The tribe had been so desperate for economic development before the casino that it had seriously entertained building a huge hazardous-waste incinerator for petroleum sludge.
In hindsight, Bradley said the tribe miscalculated how the casino would perform economically.
“We live in an LDS area and it was only an hour and a half to the casinos, motels and swimming pools of Mesquite, Nev. We just couldn’t compete,” Bradley said.
At the time of the casino closing, the tribe was about $750,000 in the red between casino-related debts and back state taxes.
“The management company for the casino, Game Plan, had made only enough to cover its part,” Bradley said. “Fortunately, we hadn’t gotten in too deep. And, it also helped matters that we had some money in reserve because of an insurance company we then owned in Scottsdale (Ariz.) which provided workmen’s compensation for other tribes.”
Angie Bulletts, former tribal administrator for the Kaibab-Paiutes, said the closure of the casino did expedite the process of more people leaving the reservation and that about half of the enrolled members now live elsewhere.
“It’s left a gap for those who don’t have job skills because the tribal government has few entry-level positions,” Bulletts said. “But we have made a nice recovery from this given what we thought would happen at the time.”
The tribe recently leased, for an undisclosed amount, its rights to 475 gaming devices that it was permitted for in its compact with the state of Arizona to the Ak-Chin Indian Community south of Phoenix. That tribe is owner of Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino.
Bulletts said the tribe will discuss at its January general meeting what to do with that money.
Meanwhile, Bradley said the tribe is on a big campaign of small-business development along Highway 389. It also hasn’t ruled out a return to gaming in the future.
“Personally, I hope we don’t go back into gaming but we do have land between the towns of Fredonia, Ariz., and Kanab, Utah, which could be developed for that it we can get access to the nearby highway,” Bradley said.