Star Lake Mn Casino Plans
The White Earth Nation has temporarily stepped back from the issue of pursuing a casino complex on Star Lake in Minnesota's Otter Tail County. The White Earth Nation announced plans in the. The White Earth Band plans to build a new casino on Star Lake just west of Dent, Minnesota. The location is near the intersection of County Hwy 41 and 380th Street in central Otter Tail County. The casino is named Star Lake Casino and will be built on a 270-acre site with more than a mile of lake frontage. Construction begins in 2016.
The White Earth Band plans to build a new casino on Star Lake in Otter Tail County. Prairie Business reports on the efforts by the tribe, which is proposing the casino along Highway 41, south of.
After three years of painstaking planning, the White Earth Nation has canceled its plans for a casino, event center, and hotel in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. The 270-acre plans, around 190 miles northwest of the Twin Cities, would have been on the shore of Star Lake, trust land of the tribe’s. The Chippewa nation announced that the reason for the canceled plans is due to the rescinded authorization from its business committee. The project had lots of opponents, mostly residents worried about environmental damage, traffic, and noise.
The Star Lake area where the casino had been planned is home to wildlife breeding grounds, wild rice beds, and cabins that have been held in families for many generations.
The Proposal
The White Earth Band’s plans were to build a new casino on Star Lake west of Dent, Minnesota. Named Star Lake Casino, the site would have more than a mile of lake frontage and would have been a smaller sister casino to the Shooting Star Casinos in Bagley and Mahnomen.
The White Earth Chippewa Band’s plans to build a third casino (Star Lake Casino) were canceled due to a 4-0 vote of the tribe’s Business Casino.
Otter Tail County
Otter Trail County has over 100 mom-and-pop resorts, and the casino project would have been completely unlike what residents and visitors are used to. The project would have had 180 hotel rooms, a full-service spa, an RV park, and a convention center big enough to host gatherings of 400 participants in addition to 850 slot machines.
Opponents of the project sent over 400 pages of letters and emails to the county’s Board of Commissioners. One specific letter from a resident in Fergus Falls, Mark Oyloe, wrote,
“I would suggest that anyone who thinks the transportation infrastructure is adequate for the proposed project take a drive from Pelican Rapids to Dent on [State Hwy.] 108 on a dark, cloudy night.”
Another opponent, who identified herself as a White Earth tribal member, Pam Fairbanks, said,
“Our Reservation is in need of anything but another casino.”
Star Lake Casino
White Earth Indian Reservation
The White Earth Indian Reservation is the home for the White Earth Band in northwestern Minnesota. The largest Indian reservation in Minnesota by land area, the reservation is about 225 miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul and about 65 miles from Fargo-Moorhead.
White Earth Nation Casinos in Minnesota
There are currently 20 casinos, racetracks, and poker rooms in operation in Minnesota, two of which are operated by the White Earth Nation. The newest, Shooting Star Casino near Bagley, is on the northeastern side of the reservation. It features 170 slot machines and an eatery in its 21,400 square-foot facility. It opened in August 2016.
The original Shooting Star, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016, is in Mahnomen, on the western edge of the reservation. Much larger and with more features than the newest casino near Bagley, this one has close to 30,000 square feet of event/meeting space, Las Vegas-style gaming tables, and hosts live shows for big-name concerts.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.A view of Star Lake in Minnesota. Photo from Star Lake Property Owner's Association
The White Earth Nation continues to face questions about a proposed gaming facility in Star Lake, Minnesota. Residents packed a community meeting on March 30 to discuss the project. Many were concerned about the size of the casino -- which includes a hotel, a 10,000 square-foot conference center and a 6,000 square-foot indoor/outdoor pool and spa -- given the rural nature of Star Lake. “We tried to blend the northwoods feel and not present ourselves as a Las Vegas-style casino,' Bill Marsh, the general manager of the Shooting Star Casino said at the meeting, The Detroit Lakes Tribune reported. 'Our focus is on the resort-type living. That’s the type of the facility we are trying to design.” The tribe owns 14.5 acres of trust land at the lake. The tribe has since purchased adjoining properties and now owns a total of 270 acres there, according to Otter Tail County. 
The Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen, Minnesota. Photo from Facebook
The tribe operates one Shooting Star location in Mahnomen and is building a second one near the communities of Bagley and Ebro. Both sites are located on the main reservation Star Lake is about 39 miles from the southern border of the reservation. The tribe maintains a cultural connection to the area, which has been used for traditional ricing activities. The land was placed in trust prior to 1988 but an exact date hasn't been reported in the Minnesota media. The Class III gaming compact authorizes gaming at any site on the reservation as well as additional 'Indian lands' under the tribe's jurisdiction. The Star Lake site presumably falls under the definition of 'Indian lands' in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The casino could open sometime in 2017. Get the Story:
Shooting Star Casino meeting draws large crowd in Dent (The Detroit Lakes Tribune 4/16) White Earth Nation breaks ground on second gaming facility (11/16)
White Earth Nation plans hotel and RV park at third casino site (10/09)
Star Lake Mn Casino Plans Map
White Earth Nation outlines plan for yet another gaming facility (09/28)