TUNICA: GAMBLING TOWN'S SALVATION

TUNICA, Miss. -- On Monday, the city of Cape Girardeau will be one step closer to joining the burgeoning casino gambling market.

The city council is slated to endorse the proposal of one of two gaming companies competing for a riverboat gambling license in Cape Girardeau.

It's a process that has been played out for the past year in emerging gambling markets far east of the Nevada gambling mecca. The fastest growing new gaming market is about 3-1/2 hours south of Cape Girardeau, in Tunica County, Mississippi.

Tunica County, in the heart of the Mississippi River Delta region, only a few years ago earned the dubious distinction of being the poorest county in the nation.

Now, it's the largest gaming market in Mississippi, which has been identified by economists as the state with the most rapid economic growth in the nation.

U.S. News and World Report, Cable News Network, The London Times, and other international media have been to Tunica to report on the turnaround.

Webster Franklin, executive director of the Tunica County Chamber of Commerce, was hired as a result of the gambling boon. "The Chamber of Commerce was shut down for two years, before it reopened last April," Franklin said. "I was the chamber's first full-time employee."

A native of the Mississippi Delta, Franklin moved back to the area from Washington, D.C., where he worked for then-vice president Dan Quayle and his wife, Marilyn.

"Since the early '80s, Tunica County was proclaimed the poorest in the nation," he said. "There are 55 store fronts in downtown Tunica, and at the time, 33 were vacant."

But that was before the casinos came to town. In October 1992, Splash opened a casino at Mhoon Landing, just northwest of the town of Tunica. A year later, Lady Luck Tunica opened, and today, four other casinos -- Bally's, President, Harrah's and Southern Belle -- have been added with three more under construction.

How many Tunica storefronts are vacant today?

"None," said Franklin. "Gambling has brought a town an economy. It's proven to me that the people, when given a chance to succeed, will work to better themselves as human nature takes over.

"People whose families lived in poverty now are working, paying bills and participating in the economy."

The casinos are situated in three separate sites, nestled behind an earthen levy amid cotton fields, which dominate the Tunica County landscape.

With a population of about 8,200, the county's unemployment rate consistently hovered above 25 percent. Those lucky enough to find jobs typically worked for the handful of landowners who farm most of the real estate.

The largest employers were a manufacturing firm with about 200 workers and a catfish farm that employed 150.

But the casinos have brought a windfall in jobs and investment.

The six casinos employ almost 5,000 workers, and unemployment last year dipped below 5 percent. It's estimated that 13 to 19 casinos eventually will be operating in Tunica County with a total investment in construction of about $3 billion.

Tunica Mayor Bobby Williams remembers well what life was like before county voters authorized gambling.

"It was nice -- quiet and peaceful," Williams said. "The mayor could take time off for a vacation anytime without anybody really knowing.

"You could walk across the street and get a bite to eat at the restaurant in 10 minutes. You could walk to the bank and get service. All these things are gone, and it's wonderful."

Williams has lived in Tunica County since 1959. Embracing gambling companies was the sole tenet of his campaign for mayor nine months ago.

"There are still a lot of people here who are against it," he said. "But my opponent was against gambling, and I won the election by a 2-1 margin, so that tells you where most the people stand on the issue."

Williams said that as a mayoral candidate, he couldn't dismiss the jobs the casinos would bring to the financially strapped area, where many of the homes are little more than crumbling shacks on concrete block foundations.

"When you haven't got anything, you can't go but up," Williams said. "For years we were just sitting here waiting for someone else to go out of business."

But Williams said some pain has accompanied the gains. The rural area is ill-equipped to provide infrastructure and services for the thousands of visitors who now pass through daily.

Also, most of the casino traffic merely passes through town en route to the casinos. A couple of bed-and-breakfast establishments have opened to try to supplement the handful of rooms available in the county's two small hotels.

In May, Boyd Gaming Corp. is slated to open its Sam's Town Tunica Hotel and Gambling Hall, a $106 million project that will be the largest casino in the state.

But Franklin said more rooms are needed, and he said the area needs attractions other than gambling.

"We need something to do other than gambling so families can come," he said. "There are some development plans out there, but it will be slow in coming."

Traffic congestion, though, remains the county's overriding challenge. Prior to 1993, 3,500 vehicles crossed the Tennessee border at Memphis into Mississippi every day.

With the casinos situated only 30 miles south of Memphis, that daily count is up to about 14,000, Franklin said.

Tunica Chief of Police Charles Bolen said arrests for driving while intoxicated have increased 500 percent -- a good indicator of the kind of traffic congestion along the narrow, two-lane U.S. 61 that connects Tunica with Memphis.

"Before, on Friday and Saturday night, Tunica went to Memphis," Bolen said. "Now Memphis comes here."

Bumper-to-bumper traffic on what Bolen described as an already unsafe highway has generated more than frustrated drivers.

"People are dying on that road," the police chief said.

In 1991, there were "five or six" fatal accidents on U.S. 61, Bolen said. "The first year the casinos were operating, there were 30 deaths," he said.

Although casinos were the primary reason the state of Mississippi enjoyed a $100 million budget surplus last year, the legislature balked at earmarking the funds to widen 61, Bolen said.

"They wanted the casinos to pay for it," he said. "But I figure it's the least the state can do in return for all the money gambling has brought in."

The state finally gave in, however, and work to widen the route will commence this year.

Even with the improved 61, though, moving tens of thousands of vehicles through a town that's comprised of only a few blocks remains a challenge.

And Tunica, as well as nearby Robinsonville and Hollywood, must rely on the generosity of the casino operators to finance infrastructure improvements.

"We're shouldering most of the burden in terms of services and not getting the direct benefit of revenue, which goes to the county," said Mayor Williams.

Splash and Lady Luck have each written checks to Tunica in the amount of $100,000, and the four casinos operating at Mhoon Landing -- Splash, Lady Luck, President and Bally's -- contribute $10,000 each monthly to the city coffers.

Williams said he's saving the money for a combination city hall and police and fire department headquarters.

The Tunica Police Department has expanded from three to a dozen police officers, and has had to move several times to larger buildings.

But Franklin said the growing pains are welcome.

"Everyone involved in it is trying to just put one foot in front of the other without falling down too many times," he said.

Bolen, a self-described "Delta boy," who cut his teeth in police work at nearby Batesville and Clarksdale, said he enjoys the hectic pace the casinos have spurred.

"Anything that equals growth is good, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "Before there was no wider gulf in the country between the `haves and the have-nots' than in Tunica County, Miss.

"There were people in absolute squalor, and now you're seeing the formation of a middle class. Everybody in Tunica that wants to work has got a job, and that can't be anything but positive."

Still, Williams finds the boon hard to believe.

"When I drive over that levy and see the casinos and all the construction, it still runs shiverbumps up my spine," he said. "I guess when Frank Sinatra or Cher comes to town to perform, I'll know it's for real."