In the early 1990s, as defense and insurance industry job cuts imperiled the state’s economy, a twinkling Las Vegas-style business opened in the little town of Ledyard on land owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Indians. It wasn’t long before the Mohegan tribe opened its own casino, just 8 miles away, across the Thames River near the Uncasville section of Montville. Gambling proved an economic dynamo. Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun hired tens of thousands of workers, generated billions of dollars for their owners and the state treasury and remade the image of the region. Growth became the status quo.
