mesquawki casino bus service quad cities

That includes a choice of soup or salad (they make a superb French onion soup), fresh baked bread, and a choice of several side dishes. At Prime Cut, a 20 ounce T-bone dinner costs $23, just $19 on Wednesdays. Then Prime Cut started using Rube’s steaks and burger. I used to stop at Rube’s, a legendary steakhouse in nearby Montour that raises and ages its own superb beef. Consider Prime Cut, the tribe’s steakhouse and a place I almost always visit when driving between Des Moines and Cedar Rapids or Waterloo. The casino’s restaurants are some of the best kept secrets in Iowa. Some of the best Indian artists in America (Leonard Young Bear, Bill Prokopiof, Randall Blaze, Pahponee, etc.) are shown here along with antique relics like turtle rattles, bear claw necklaces and historic photos.

The halls and lobby of the hotel and spa comprise a de facto museum of tribal history. I can go there for a couple days and never want to leave the complex, even though I only gamble on horse racing. Meskwaki Casino transports one to another time and place. Almost the entire population has moved back to the settlement. That evolved into a casino, hotel and spa that has financed large modern farming operations, three schools, a tribal clinic, a senior living center, housing and the purchase of a bank. In 1989, the tribe finally had earned enough money hosting bingo in their gymnasium to finance a stand-alone bingo hall on the new highway. Without the commerce, most of the tribe moved away. They owned some land on the southern side of the new highway, but they lacked the money to move water lines, gas lines and electricity. After the suspicious move, the tribe suffered. Some 35,000 visitors attended the annual Pow Wow, held along the old highway.

Their Stone House gas station attracted tourists (“The Wild West begins in Iowa”) who bought crafts from the tribe’s artisans who set up shop on the roadside every day. From 1918 till that move, the highway had delivered an economic boon to the tribe. In 1955 the powers there moved it several miles north of its original course through the Meskwaki settlement. The Lincoln Highway’s course was only altered in one place - between Marshalltown and Tama. The Meskwaki Casino is imbued with delicious irony. Jackpot’s grill chefs will prepare 600 -800 T-bones and ribeyes in four hours each Monday.

Mesquawki casino bus service quad cities