The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will seek to expand its trust lands by 3.088 acres following a unanimous vote from Tribal Council Dec. 9. 

Despite an impassioned plea for immediate action from the tribe’s Natural Resource Department, the Cherokee Tribal Council voted unanimously last month to table a resolution that would temporarily prohibit hunting on a 138-acre property in Macon County. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ last hope for stopping the Catawba Indian Nation from building a casino in North Carolina is dead following passage of a bill affirming the U.S. Department of Interior’s decision  to take 17 acres in Cleveland County into trust for the tribe. 

The company the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians formed earlier this year to purchase Caesar’s Southern Indiana Casino hopes to branch out its business interests, receiving approval from Tribal Council Dec. 9 to invest up to $12 million in gaming-related technologies and pursue construction of a sports betting bar on the tribe’s Exit 407 property  in Sevier County. 

Casinos in Cherokee and Murphy will be permanently smoke-free following a majority vote from Tribal Council Dec. 9, codifying a policy that’s been in place since the Coronavirus Pandemic spurred a temporary ban on lighting up indoors. 

The history of the Nikwasi Mound in Franklin will soon be part of a Smithsonian Museum traveling exhibit that will tour around the U.S.

Tribal Council voted Dec. 9 to support the Nikwasi Initiative’s  efforts to land $5 million in grant funds for a cultural corridor around the Nikwasi Mound in Franklin, but the precise details of the tribe’s involvement have yet to be determined. 

A long-term care center, massive expansion to broadband access and direct payments to tribal members are some of the many uses the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians plans for the $117 million it will receive directly from the American Rescue Plan — with even more money likely to come from ARP-funded grants other agencies are in the process of awarding. 

By Molly Phillips • Contributing writer | Over the summer, 16 students from Western Carolina University — led by Dr. Brett Riggs, Dr. Jane Eastman and field assistant Karen Biggert — drove each weekday from Cullowhee to Franklin to spend more than four hot, sticky weeks outdoors. Their mission? To apply scientific techniques to discover archaeological evidence on Mainspring’s Watauga Mound  property, and learn more about what northern Macon County looked like hundreds of years ago. 

A restless autumn wind ripples through the valley, passing over green fields, across turned-up garden plots and through tall rows of dried corn stalks. Their raspy skeletons rustle in the breeze, which exits the field to send a few glimmering strands of gossamer sailing over the gravel path that leads past Kituwah Mound.