In 1987 the name was changed to Chip-In Casino, possibly foretelling of the future the game of golf would play in the resort’s special development. It offered bingo and couple of card games in a pole barn.

That is the year the Hannahville Casino opened near the Tribal Administration Center. Substantial changes began to happen in 1985. If you said, ‘wow, what a change since then,’ we’d be forgetting that as late as 1984, what is now the large, financially successful and philanthropic resort was humbly referred to as a simple bingo hall. After decades of struggles and as late as 1965, members of the community still had little money, had no running water and no electricity. The Hannahville Indian Community became a federally-recognized tribe in 1913, about 80 years after their ancestors, who escaped the forced relocation of the Potawatomi people to Kansas, first settled in the U.P.’s Cedar River region.

“I’ve played Sweetgrass probably more than anybody, so it can be described as when you gain weight, if you see someone every day they might not notice it, but you wait a few years and it’s like, ‘wow, he got big fast.’ So yes, it has happened pretty quick and it’s pretty impressive when you frame it like that.” “Yes, it’s been on a rise for quite a while, and we hope to keep that going,” GM Tony Mancilla recently told me.

The resort has also created the very successful sister golf course, Sage Run, and expanded their on-site hotel towers to 454 rooms, the most in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula region north of Milwaukee. Ultimately ascended to the 2022 title of National Golf Course of the Year from the National Golf Course Owners Assoc Has won numerous golf awards for design, beauty and playability In the short years since the Sweetgrass Golf Club opened on the site owned by the Hannahville Indian Community, just north of Escanaba, Sweetgrass Golf Club has: The demand was partially due to a golfing boom in lower northern Michigan that extended up into the scenic U.P. In the case of Island Resort & Casino in the Upper Peninsula, exceptional growth and demand for golf has been their reality since the day Sweetgrass Golf Club opened 15 years ago. Slow and steady growth is a common mantra to business professionals and organizations. Celebrating 15 years of golfing excellence at Sweetgrass Golf Club By Tom Lang

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