Poor Pocket of Mississippi Hopes Floating Casinos Will Come Round Bend : Poverty: Issaquena County has no schools or factories. Voters seeking economic salvation chose to invite the riverboat gamblers back.

This forlorn corner of the Mississippi Delta, a poor area hugging the river bank in a poor state, is pinning its hopes for economic salvation on a historic renaissance of riverboat gambling.

Along with the paddle wheelers, cigar-smoking high-rollers and stud poker games come promises of jobs for hundreds of people and a $6-million payroll. That’s a tempting pot for the roughly 2,000 people--mostly black--who carve out an existence in a region sympathetically compared to the Third World.

In the summer, the green cotton plants sprout in the peaceful, wide-open fields of Issaquena County. Along the highway, a few neat townhouses with satellite dishes rise up beside dilapidated shacks. The awful truth of Issaquena is hard to hide.

There are no schools in the county. No factories, either. Nearly 250 households receive food stamps. One out of five workers is without a job until cotton picking time rolls around in the fall.

Until then, there’s little to do other than stay in the shade, fish or drink beer.

Nathan Skipworth, who has pulled catfish out of secluded Steele Bayou for almost 15 years, doubts that his fishing hole will become another Las Vegas any time soon. After all, he asks, who would risk a multimillion-dollar business in the middle of nowhere?

Such defeatism is common and its roots are deep.

Steele Bayou is an unassuming place, plopped in a Sherwoodesque forest in the extreme southern tip of the county. A narrow ribbon of gravel road, with a big water-filled hole in the middle, is the only way to and from the highway. The humid air is thick with heat and flies. A crop duster buzzes a slow, noisy circle overhead at treetop level.

In the later part of the 19th Century, county seat Mayersville was the biggest cotton shipping point between Vicksburg to the south and Greenville to the north. Packetboats carrying passengers stopped by on their New Orleans-St. Louis run.

The cotton was high, the river was wide, and life was good.

Then in 1882, a railroad was built through the county. Cotton could now be sent directly from the fields to Vicksburg or Greenville.

Mayersville was condemned to oblivion when two of the area’s largest plantation owners refused to let the railroad pass through their property and the town was cut off.

From now on, the steamboats would just cruise by.

A prosperous kingdom of cotton farmers withered and died practically overnight.

“Issaquena Only County Without Single Town,” a newspaper headline proclaimed in 1960. “Farming, politics or keeping store is all there is to do here.”

Since then, proposed cures to end the cycle of poverty have sometimes seemed worse than the disease. With a per capita income of just barely over $10,000--ranked in the bottom quarter of the state--the frustration is understandable.

Recently, the county was divided over a proposal to host a $70-million giant factory that would burn hazardous waste. Again, jobs and money were promised. Again, hopes were raised.

But a state engineering report determined the county didn’t have the right soil to permit a toxic facility. Progress rattled merrily away down the railroad tracks, as it did in the late 19th Century.

Now, the state Legislature has given Issaquena another chance. Lawmakers carved out an exception to the state’s 1890 constitution forbidding gambling. Counties along the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River were allowed to decide if they wanted the games back.

Issaquena, with fewer than half its voters turning out, narrowly approved gambling in March.

Baptist preachers in this stronghold of the Bible Belt urged residents to resist the siren’s call of gambling. Folks like Charley Fitzgerald, a tall, gaunt black man who carries the scars of living most of his 77 years in the cotton fields, listened to the horror stories.

“I don’t gamble. I’m a church member,” Fitzgerald says. But then, with a wink, he adds, “But I might go down there and take a look.”

The next question is when. When will the gamblers come? More important, when will the developers start developing what many residents consider nothing more than a mosquito-infested fishing hole?

Time could be running out. Warren County--where Vicksburg is located--rejected riverboat gambling by a thousand votes last December. The law allows Warren County another vote a year later, and many in Issaquena believe it’ll pass this time.

“Vicksburg would be a fool to let it get away again,” says Pearl Nebels, who is building her dream house only 100 yards away from the bayou. “I don’t expect I’ll have to worry about anyone bothering my spot.”

The Las Vegas-based Mississippi Riverboats Inc. says it can’t do much until the state starts issuing gaming licenses. The Gaming Commission insists that approval of licenses is a slow, methodical process. Cynical observers speculate that no permits will be issued until after the November statewide elections: Gambling is too hot a potato.

Therein lies the germ of the problem. Issaquena could be on the verge of a gigantic leap forward, but a few are hanging back.

“There are some old people in this county who want things to stay the way they were 100 years ago,” says Loryce Hawn, who’s offering a blue plate special of red beans and rice at her tiny store up the road from the bayou.

“But I’ll tell you what, if we don’t do something soon, this county is going to dry up.”

Mayersville (population 300), sitting on the Mississippi, is the only incorporated city in the county. But it resembles a bivouac in the middle of the jungle rather than a town. A scattering of houses, a flag pole and a city hall located in a former church.

The famous levee is still there, and Mayor Unita Blackwell enjoys taking visitors for a glimpse of the glory of bygone days.

Gambling, Blackwell shrugs, will come when the fates dictate. History, like the eternal Mississippi that rolls patiently under her gaze, comes and goes, comes and goes.

“People here have been hurting for so long, a few more months won’t make any difference,” Blackwell says. “We’ve come to expect waiting. When it gets here, it’ll be here.”