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Courtesy of Shvetsa via Pexels <\/p>\n
Driving along Interstate 5 through Tacoma, the hulking half sphere of the Tacoma Dome<\/a> is no longer the only notable sight. In 2020, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians<\/a>\u2019 Emerald Queen Casino<\/a> went live with its impressive big screen and LED accent lights, pulling the eyes of drivers cruising along that stretch of highway.<\/p>\n Inside, the casino is state-of-the-art and features the top gaming technology, including Sportsbook betting. But for many local gambling enthusiasts, the memory of Emerald Queen\u2019s early days still lingers in their minds.<\/p>\n It was, after all, only 30 years ago this December that the Puyallup Tribe brought Las Vegas-style gambling and entertainment to Tacoma for the first time by opening its shoreside venue in the tideflats area.<\/p>\n The waterfront building was built to mimic 19th-century New Orleans architecture. \u201cInside, brass ceiling tiles, crystal chandeliers, and balconies with wrought-iron railings are meant to evoke Bourbon Street,\u201d according to The News Tribune\u2019s day-after-Christmas dispatch ahead of the venue\u2019s late-December 1996 opening.<\/p>\n The Big Easy-Esque building was later augmented with a 292-foot Mississippi-style paddleboat known as the Emerald Queen.<\/p>\n As the EQC gears up to celebrate 30 years, many within the organization are reflecting on the early days of the casino riverboat and what it meant for the local economy and in the hearts and minds of those who remember it.<\/p>\n Emerald Queen Chief of Staff Teresa Wright was there on Jan. 21, 1997, when the landmark riverboat was brought into the Port of Tacoma.<\/p>\n \u201cI was working in the marketing department at the time; it was just so much fun to see,\u201d Wright recalled.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Emerald Queen Casino<\/p>\n The Mark Twain-era sternwheeler replica was built in Louisiana by Quality Shipyard and Kehl River Boats and shipped from Mississippi. It arrived in the Puget Sound by way of a monthlong journey by barge, where it traversed the Panama Canal and ascended the West Coast.<\/p>\n \u201cDecked out with gold Victorian gingerbread and riding high on a barge, the $14-million boat resembled a wedding cake on a platter as it sailed through the shipping lanes north of Seattle,\u201d a Jan. 22, 1997, report from The News Tribune read.<\/p>\n It had three decks, each purportedly the length of a football field, for a total of 45,000 square feet and packed with gaming tables featuring poker, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, keno, and more.<\/p>\n As the boat rounded Tacoma\u2019s Point No Point and approached its moorage, members of the tribe received it with a traditional song of welcome.<\/p>\n By the time of the riverboat\u2019s April 1997 debut, a few months later, there was a fervor among locals to board and experience the floating gaming facility. A crowd of close to 300 gathered in the parking lot on opening day.<\/p>\n \u201cAt precisely 12 o\u2019clock, to the second, the big glass doors swing open, and the crowd surges forward,\u201d observed Tribune writer Rob Carson. \u201cIn they go, past the big-screen TVs, the Caribbean steel band, and the giveaway BMW Z-3 roadster. They charge up the gangways of the Emerald Queen riverboat, three abreast.\u201d<\/p>\n Courtesy of Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels <\/p>\n As the opening day wore on, Carson proclaimed the riverboat\u2019s unofficial \u201csuccess\u201d based on the overflowing parking lot, the crowds around the gaming tables, and the 40-minute wait to order blackened catfish in the venue\u2019s Cajun lounge.<\/p>\n That early waterfront attraction \u2014 which ultimately closed in 2004 due to development at the port \u2014 led to the tribe\u2019s Fife casino, hotel, and event center that opened that same year. The tribe later added to its EQC brand amid the pandemic when it opened that 310,000-square-foot casino and 155-room hotel tower along I-5.<\/p>\n In a 2025 statement celebrating the career accomplishments of former CEO Frank Wright and Chief Operating Officer George Robinson, Puyallup Tribal Council Chairman Bill Sterud said the two did an \u201coutstanding job\u201d growing EQC throughout their almost three decades with the company.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started with nothing, and we brought in a riverboat out on the waterfront,\u201d Sterud said. \u201cIt worked out well. With the size constraints, we had to move over here with tents, but that\u2019s totally making another casino. That\u2019s two casinos they were a part of. The third had to start from scratch during COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n For Wright, who has been there since the beginning and is still going strong, it\u2019s less about the riverboat and the progression of the casino\u2019s physical spaces and more about the people.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a lot of people that have been here for a very long time,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have watched each other\u2019s children grow; we\u2019ve watched people get married. \u2026 And it\u2019s just really amazing that in the (last) 30 years, we\u2019ve been able to do that. And it\u2019s also amazing that in nearly 30 years, we have a lot of day-one employees still with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy of Shvetsa via Pexels Driving along Interstate 5 through Tacoma, the hulking half sphere of the Tacoma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[114949,881,114955,59548,9,24,114953,63,114954,114952,122,124,123,114950,114951],"class_list":["post-303272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-emerald-queen-casino","tag-history","tag-july-august-2026","tag-local-history","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-now-you-know","tag-nyc","tag-pnw-history","tag-puyallup-tribe-of-indians","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-tacoma","tag-tacoma-dome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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