French Lick Resort Casino
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French Lick Resort Casino is a resort and casino complex located in the towns of West Baden and French Lick, Indiana. The complex includes two historic resort spa hotels, a casino and three golf courses.
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[edit] Casino
The casino opened for business on November 3, 2006 after a gaming license originally intended for Patoka Lake was transferred to French Lick. Since casinos are illegal in Indiana unless they are on a riverboat[1], the casino is surrounded by a moat and shaped like a boat[2]. The hotel closed for renovation a year during 2005 and 2006 before the casino opening, and reopened along with the casino.
However, eight months after opening, French Lick continues to lag Indiana's 10 other casinos in every significant category -- including admissions, gross revenues and the average amount it wins from patrons at each slot machine and table game chair, state figures show.
The casino features more than 1,200 slot machines, and table games including blackjack, craps, roulette, and poker.
[edit] French Lick Springs Hotel
The location was originally known as the French Lick Springs Hotel, a grand resort that catered to those who came to partake of the advertised healing properties of the town's sulfur springs. The first hotel was opened in 1845 and was an immediate success. The original hotel burned in 1897, but the resort was rebuilt on an even grander scale by new owner Thomas Taggart, mayor of Indianapolis and chair of the Democratic National Committee. He convinced the Monon Railroad to build a spur directly to the hotel grounds with daily passenger service to Chicago. The rich and famous were guests during the heyday of the resort, including Franklin D. Roosevelt (who announced his candidacy for president at the 1931 national Governors conference there), Ronald Reagan and numerous others. Casino gambling, though technically illegal, flourished near the resort (but not at the resort proper). The spring water known as Pluto Water was bottled at a plant across the street from the hotel for use on the property and for commercial distribution. Tomato juice is said to have been served for the first time at the hotel in 1917 when the chef Louis Perrin ran out of orange juice and needed an alternative.
The resort went into a steady decline with the Great Depression, enjoyed a brief revival during World War II, then went into decline again, particularly after the illegal casinos were shuttered by action of Indiana Governor Henry Schricker in 1949. The property went through a procession of owners, some of whom attempted to return the resort to its former glory. National Conventions of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity were held at the hotel in 1940, 1953, and 1968.
Revival in earnest came when, after considerable campaigning by local residents, Indiana gaming authorities finally awarded a long-promised license for a riverboat casino to the city. The new casino was a bit slow to get into the water, after businessman Donald Trump was granted the original operating license, only to have it withdrawn for a variety of reasons. The license was finally awarded to a partnership of business interests from within Indiana including billionaire Bill Cook. Cook later bought out the partners after a legal dispute.
The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is recognized as one of the Historic Hotels of America by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
[edit] Golf Courses
A golf course known as the Hill Course was added in 1917 and was designed by Donald Ross. It hosted the 1924 PGA Championship won by Walter Hagen and also has hosted the 1959 and 1960 LPGA Championship and was the home of the Midwest Amateur from the 1930s through the 1950s. Pete Dye captured the 1957 Midwest Amateur on the course. In 2006-7 the course was restored to its original specifications in cooperation with the Donald Ross Society. The PGA will return to French Lick in June 2010 for the PGA Professional Championship.
A second 18-hole course adjacent to the hotel and casino is being altered to become a 9-hole course as a result of the casino construction.
A new course has been designed by Hoosier Pete Dye and is currently under construction. Mount Airie, Tom Taggart's 1928 Colonial-style home, located on the second highest point in the state has been purchased to serve as the clubhouse for the new course.
[edit] West Baden Springs Hotel
The 246-room luxury West Baden Springs Hotel in the adjacent town a mile away is also part of the Casino Resort complex and opened in May 2007.
[edit] References
- Information Maintained by the Office of Code Revision Indiana Legislative Services Agency. "Riverboat Gambling," IC 35-45-5-10.
- Turkel, Stanley. "Two Landmark Hotels Saved, Two Others Need Saving", HotelInteractive.com, June 1, 2007. Accessed September 1, 2007.
