Miami tribe buys Illinois land for cemetery

GREENUP, Ill. -- The Miami tribe of Oklahoma says it won't try to develop a casino on the 25 acres it recently bought in southeastern Illinois.

The tribe will use the land instead to bury its dead, said the tribe's attorney, Don Pongrace of the Akin Gump law firm in Washington D.C.

While the tribe is trying to build a casino in northern Indiana, Pongrace said it won't on the land in rural Cumberland County.

"Not on this parcel at all, not in Illinois at all," he said.

Pongrace said the tribe chose the parcel for its accessibility, "but the tribe has absolutely no plans whatsoever for economic development of any kind."

Located about three miles north of Interstate 70 on Illinois Route 130, the land will serve as a tribal cemetery.

Eventually the tribe may establish a "repository" for tribal artifacts discovered in Illinois, where the tribe once lived, Pongrace said.