The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is still not sure what will become of the land it bought in Carroll County last year, although Chief Phillip Martin says it must be a "multiple-use property."
Economic diversity has helped bring prosperity to the tribe's reservation near Philadelphia, Martin said Tuesday night. He spoke at the annual meeting of the Greenwood-Leflore-Carroll Economic Development Foundation.
"Back home, we started with sharecropping. Then, we got into industry and manufacturing. We succeeded in creating jobs. Now, we've got a resort community."
A similar formula will be plugged into the Malmaison property, the Carroll County homesite of 19th-century Choctaw Chief Greenwood Leflore, Martin said.
Teams of architects and planners have been surveying the 896-acre site in recent months. The tribe has hired a firm from Chicago to conduct a feasibility study. A conceptual drawing includes two golf courses, a convention hotel, a performing arts center, two recreational lakes and a replica of Greenwood Leflore's mansion, Malmaison.
"It's going to take that kind of mix of things to bring people off Interstate 55 and bring them here," said Jim Clancy, the tribe's attorney general, who also addressed the audience.
Clancy acknowledged two existing casinos, the Silver Star and the Golden Moon, as the drawing cards of the tribe's tourism industry. Gaming, he said, has transformed the Pearl River reservation into a destination for tourists from all over the country.
"Years ago, you never could have told me people would come to Philadelphia, but they do now," he said.
The Choctaw's association with gaming drew organized protest from Carroll County residents after the Malmaison property was purchased last November.
Clancy said after Tuesday's meeting that the possibility of a casino is absent from the preliminary drawings, for now. Neither was it mentioned in Martin's speech.
"It wasn't brought up here tonight," the chief said after the meeting. "There's a law that says if the people in the county didn't want it, we wouldn't go that route."
Martin emphasized in his speech that his people did not ask for casinos on tribal land; the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them based on lawsuits appealed by tribes in Michigan and California. But, he said, the ruling enhanced the Choctaw ability to reinvest its profits.
"That opened the door for us," he said.
One certain plan for the Malmaison property is to rebuild the mansion, which burned down in 1942.
Robert Ingram, the new executive director of the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Board, is exciting about tapping into the land's history.
"The Delta has been talking for years about heritage tourism, and what a great anchor on either end," he said after the meeting. "This kind of thing has been lacking on all the plans for that. There wasn't a true destination spot. This will make people come to stay."
There will be plenty of opportunities for joint efforts between the tribe and the surrounding communities, he said.
Such interaction has bolstered the tribe's success elsewhere, Martin said. He said he was impressed with the coordinated efforts the counties have put together so far to attract industry and a better quality of life. The Choctaw expect to invest in that effort in the future.
"Money can change things," Martin said. "It all depends on how you use it."
