"A roundabout on the highway, the first and only of its kind in Tuolumne County, leads to the entrance of the resort. The Chicken Ranch Rancheria Me-Wuk Indians of California, a federally recognized tribe that's run a bingo hall in Jamestown since 1985, paid to install the roundabout to ease traffic on this stretch where Highways 49 and 108 overlap. It's part of their $325 million bet on expanding gaming in the foothills, an hour from the Big Oak Flat Entrance into Yosemite."
"As I rode the traffic circle, it seemed to generate centrifugal motion, propelling me past the 40-foot-tall statue of a feather and up to the gambling floor, where I would put my remedial knowledge of blackjack on the line. But my arrival wasn't at all accidental: Like other California travelers, I had seen the absurd highway billboards promoting the new resort around the state, which lean into its name with unabashed poultry puns."
The Chicken Ranch Casino Resort is a nine-story hotel built on a pastoral hillside, painted in a rooster-wattle color and marked by a 40-foot feather statue. A newly installed roundabout, funded by the Chicken Ranch Rancheria Me-Wuk Indians of California, provides access where Highways 49 and 108 overlap. The tribe, which has operated a Jamestown bingo hall since 1985, invested in a $325 million expansion to grow foothill gaming near Yosemite. Highway billboards use poultry puns to advertise the resort. The casino interior is non-smoking, bordered by floor-to-ceiling windows that offer rustic rural views and active table games.
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