NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 717.255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
9 February 2004

CITY LAUNCHES HERITAGE TOURISM PLANNING EFFORT

Harrisburg, PA—Mayor Stephen R. Reed today announced that the National Museum of the Old West is on hold indefinitely and that a process of study and public participation will be initiated to form a Comprehensive Heritage Tourism Plan for the City of Harrisburg.

The Comprehensive Heritage Tourism Plan will provide a long-range vision for the city that identifies what additional facilities, amenities and marketing are required to further enhance Harrisburg as a major heritage tourism center—and to accent the city’s local history and role in the state’s and nation’s history.

The study, to be undertaken this year, will include a public input process through which individual citizens, groups and facility operators can provide their suggestions. The study’s scope will (1) determine the feasibility of ideas offered through public input and from tourism consultants, (2) link heritage tourism initiatives to the broader economic development of the city, (3) identify timelines and goals for enhancing and expanding the city’s tourism market, and (4) establish ways and means to achieve the goals.

Further, the Mayor announced plans to create two entities to support heritage tourism and museum operations in the city.

The first will be the Harrisburg Heritage Tourism Commission. The Commission will be comprised of representatives of different history-related organizations and facilities, as well as individual citizens. The Commission will serve as the oversight panel for the study’s development and implementation.

A second entity, the Harrisburg Museum Network, will be comprised of senior representatives of museum facilities throughout the city. The Network will create an interconnection between each facility to allow for joint operating activities, such as multi-venue ticketing and promotions, bulk buying of commonly used materials and supplies, joint marketing, sharing of staff (since different facilities have varying seasonal workload demands), and other joint efforts. The Network will be open to all museum facilities located in the city, including non history-related facilities.

Reed said that to cover the study costs and initial expense of the Commission and Network, he is ordering that at least $500,000 in Old West artifacts be sold. Any sale must be done in accordance with state law provisions, which likely means assignment to auctions to assure an open public bidding, utilizing auction houses that have historically attracted the most Western-item related buyers.

The Network and perhaps the Commission will likely establish permanent offices in the administrative wing of The National Civil War Museum in Reservoir Park.

Reed also announced that some of the most historically significant Old West artifacts will be slated for a temporary exhibit open to the public in the special exhibit wing of The National Civil War Museum, with the aim of opening the exhibit in late Fall of this year.

The Mayor also said that as of mid-December, he directed that no further purchases of Old West artifacts shall occur, and no new items have since been considered.

The Mayor credited Harrisburg businessman Jason Smith, who has been critical of the Old West museum project, for offering some of the suggestions embodied in today’s announcements.

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