10/15/09
Fall brings brisk business to Museum at Portland Head Light gift shop
The Museum at Portland Head Light gift shop recorded record sales in September 2009, topping the record off with more than $10,000 in sales on Columbus Day, Oct. 12.
Town Manager Michael McGovern announced the brisk lighthouse business at the Town Council's meeting Oct. 14.
Tour buses entering and leaving Fort Williams during fall leaf-peeping season may be a burden to some, but the burden is not without reward, McGovern said.
On Columbus Day, 27 tour buses visited Fort Williams and Portland Head Light's museum and gift shop, McGovern said. Twenty of those 27 buses were tied to cruise ships docked in Portland.
Museum gift shop sales totaled $10,600 on Columbus Day, McGovern said, capping the first 12 days of October when the average sales were $6,000 per day.
September daily sales averaged $4,000 per day, a new record for the shop, which is housed in what used to be a two-car garage.
Revenue from museum shop sales goes toward maintenance of the Portland Head Light Museum, and in recent years, projects in surrounding Fort Williams Park, McGovern said. An example is improvements made to the entrance of the park last fall, a $131,000 project funded by the Portland Head Light special fund. An interpretive display at Battery Knoll was also funded by gift shop proceeds.
McGovern credited the volunteers who oversee the day-to-day operations of the museum gift shop. "The museum shop has been doing extremely well," McGovern said. "$10,600 - I don't know how they could do that in that little shop, but they managed to, and I just wanted to recognize them," he said.
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