Dowagiac and the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi

Dowagiac is the home base of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, one of the region’s federally recognized Native American tribes. The Band’s main government offices are here, and its roots in this area go back centuries — the city’s very name comes from the Potawatomi. After a long fight, the tribe’s federal recognition was reaffirmed by Congress in 1994, and it has since become one of southwest Michigan’s most significant employers and community institutions, with tribal government, housing, and economic-development arms based in and around Dowagiac.

The Band also runs the Four Winds casinos. The third of them, Four Winds Dowagiac, opened just south of the city in 2013 on tribal land — smaller and more local than the flagship resort the tribe built down in New Buffalo, but part of the same family of casinos. Between its government and its businesses, the Pokagon Band is woven deeply into life in this corner of the county.

Four Winds Dowagiac, 58700 M-51 South, Dowagiac · fourwindscasino.com