This is why a Kings Mountain, NC, casino will change lives for the Catawbas in SC
Two Kings Casino in Kings Mountain opened Thursday to a full house -- all 649 parking spaces were filled and a line of cars snaked down a nearby street.
That visual evidence pointed to a deeper success for the Catawba Indians who run the facility, fill many jobs inside, and call a reservation roughly 35 miles away in Rock Hill, S.C., their home.
It’s a symbol of a renewed partnership between Kings Mountain and the Catawbas, Chief Bill Harris said. The Catawbas fought “side by side” with American soldiers in the 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain, he said, and have waited until now to again stand beside the people of North Carolina.
It also marks a homecoming. The 500-slot-machine casino sits on Catawba aboriginal land that historians say the nation once occupied. The land was not part of the Catawba’s most recent land agreement with the U.S. government, which granted their reservation in Rock Hill. The Catawbas secured the 16.57 acres in Kings Mountain in 2020 when it was trusted to the tribe by the U.S. Department of Interior.
And it’s a financial boost for a people who have struggled. The tribe has waged a decade-long push for the casino as a means to lift the Catawbas out of poverty.
The unemployment rate of the Catawbas, as calculated in April 2020 , was 13.8% and is more than three times the unemployment rate of North and South Carolina, tribal representatives testified in a petition to the Department of Interior. The median household income is around $30,000 according to these documents. That’s about 30% below the median income in both Carolinas.
The Catawba’s business plan showed the casino is projected to generate $72 million in revenue in its first year, and $150 million by its fifth year.
Out of 200 employees at the temporary casino facility, 50 are Catawba. That’s close to 2% of the 3,000 total registered Catawba citizens.
“With the revenue from the casino, we’ll be able to afford more housing, more healthcare, more education opportunities, and the list goes on and on. Providing more economic development for the tribe… It’s going to change the lives of Catawba today and the Catawba of the future,” Catawba Assistant Chief Jason Harris — a third cousin of Bill Harris — told The Herald.
Name is significant
The casino is named Two Kings to honor the town of Kings Mountain, N.C., where the casino is based, and 18th Century Catawba Chief King Hagler.
It’s Hagler’s name is inked on the original land agreement between the British and the Catawbas, granting what was then a 144,000 acre reservation in South Carolina. His death in 1763 “ended an era,” for the Catawbas, historian James H. Williams wrote, and the beginning of a decades-long struggle as the tribe shrunk in both territory and population.
But on Thursday, Hagler’s name was honored not as a symbol of ending, but as a new beginning.
As Bill Harris addressed Kings Mountain officials who worked to get the casino project off the ground, he said: “Without each of you, and your willingness to right a historical wrong for your native sons and daughters, and for the vision to rebuild our combined communities, economically and socially, we would not be here today to celebrate the reunion of a friendship dating back 200 years.”
The establishment of Two Kings Casino, which was debated in both the U.S. Congress and North Carolina state legislature, also symbolizes an era where the United States government advocates for the Catawba people, Harris said.
Bill Harris read from an 1818 petition to Congress, written on behalf of Catawba Peter Harris, a distant relative the Chief refers to as his grandfather, who fought in the Revolutionary War:
“I’m one of the lingering embers of an almost extinguished race. Our graves will soon be our only habitations. I am one of the few stalks that still remain in the field, where the tempest of the revolution passed. I fought against the British for your sake, The British have disappeared, and you are free. Yet from me the British took nothing, nor have I gained anything by their defeat. I pursued the deer for my subsistence, the deer are disappearing, and I must starve. God ordained me for the forest, and my ambition is the shade, but the strength of my arm decays, and my feet fail in the chase, the hand which fought for your liberties is now open for your relief.”
Harris then said: “In my heart, I believe the words of my grandfather are addressed here today. For with this celebrated day, his children’s children’s children have successfully awakened in the American heart, a sense of justice. May this day bring piece to the warrior’s heart.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 2:52 PM with the headline "This is why a Kings Mountain, NC, casino will change lives for the Catawbas in SC."
