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07-09-2007, 01:18 PM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4950647.html
July 8, 2007, 11:39AM
As Bush goes, so goes Crawford
Everyone agrees 2004 was town's high-water mark for tourism trade
By THOMAS KOROSEC
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
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Tourism slump in Crawford
CRAWFORD — From a wooden bench in front of a shop selling mementos of "The Western White House," tourist Chuck Yorde wondered aloud why he seemed to be the only visitor in town.
"If his poll numbers were up there above 50-60 percent, this place would probably be a little more jumping," said Yorde, surveying the empty parking spots up and down Lone Star Parkway.
The Youngstown, Ohio, resident was almost apologetic about his own presence in the town that hosts President George W. Bush's 1,600-acre ranch. He said he was visiting his sister in nearby Gatesville who's "a big Bush fan. ... She dragged me over here."
Shuttered storefronts and eroding retail sales figures show tourism and the Bush memorabilia business are slumping in this once-sleepy farm-and-ranch town of 732 residents.
A for-sale sign is the only thing in the smudged window of the turn-of-the-century, two-story brick building that once housed the Crawford Country Style store. "The numbers just weren't working," said Norma Nelson Crow, who closed the shop at the beginning of the year.
Traffic and sales of shirts, caps, refrigerator magnets and other presidential curios began slowing in 2005, she said. By the summer of 2006, Crow said, her hopes for a turnaround in the business faded. "It was my baby and I loved that little store, but I had to face the facts," she said.
Retail sales figures kept by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts document the slide. In 2004, gross retail sales in Crawford totaled $2.6 million. They fell to $2 million in 2006, down by more than 20 percent.
Nobody is saying things have improved at all this year. "It's pretty slow, slower than last summer," Jamie Burgess, manager of the Red Bull gift shop, said last week.
Only a handful of customers came in during the day to browse her collection of Bush curios and homespun decorative items sold on consignment.
Bill Johnson, owner of the Yellow Rose, Crawford's largest gift shop, said he has been stocking more Texana and Americana items in response to the drop-off in sales of Bush merchandise. "We're changing our mix," Johnson said. "As a business we have to do what we have to do to be successful."
Ups and downs
All but abandoned after retail businesses closed or moved in the late 1950s and 1960s, Crawford sprang to life after Bush purchased the Prairie Chapel Ranch in 1999 and began campaigning for the presidency. Storefronts in the crossroads settlement that were empty before the Bushes put the town on the map were renovated into shops selling presidential items. Crawford today is home to a bank, an antique store, two gas stations and some grain silos.
Everyone agrees that 2004 was the high-water mark for Crawford's tourist trade.
"We had a 'Bush 2004' banner across the front of the store, about 11-foot-by-5-foot, white with red lettering," recalled Crow. "People would come in thinking it was Republican headquarters."
Burgess said the president's sagging popularity is at least partly to blame for the slump in visitors. The latest Newsweek poll conducted last month put the president's approval rating at 26 percent, a record low for his presidency.
The last president with numbers that low was Jimmy Carter, whose hometown of Plains, Ga., went through its own boom-bust cycle on the heels of his popularity.
"Our little town was one block long on one side of the street and we had up to 5,000 people a day here in 1976. They were like ants," recalled lifelong resident C.L. Walters, a clerk at the Plains Historic Inn.
Then came the gasoline crisis, the Russian grain embargo and other problems that soured people on Carter and Plains, Walters said. "In the last two years (of Carter's one-term presidency) we did nothing here, hardly any business at all."
Plains popular again
Today, with Carter having won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize and being recognized for his humanitarian work, Plains hosts visitors to Carter's boyhood farm, now a national historic site, and the church where Carter still teaches Sunday school classes several times a year.
"We know it will drop off after he dies," Walters said.
"But for now we have as many visitors as we've had since the '76 campaign. People come to get a glimpse of him."
In Crawford, merchants say they are waiting to see what will happen when Bush's presidency ends 18 months from now.
Burgess said it was "a big disappointment" that Bush is moving toward building his library and museum in Dallas, more than 100 miles away, rather than 18 miles east in Waco.
"We knew this wouldn't last forever, but we expected it would last longer than this," said Burgess, adding that she is hopeful business will pick up.
Johnson, who owns roofing and pawnshop businesses in Waco, said his Crawford shop still is drawing visitors from places as distant as China and New Zealand.
"There are a lot of people who still believe in this president," said Johnson, who counts himself as one of them.
"As long as Crawford is associated with him, people will come."
thomas.korosec@chron.com
July 8, 2007, 11:39AM
As Bush goes, so goes Crawford
Everyone agrees 2004 was town's high-water mark for tourism trade
By THOMAS KOROSEC
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
TOOLS
Get section feed
Subscribe NOW
Comments
Recommend
RESOURCES
Tourism slump in Crawford
CRAWFORD — From a wooden bench in front of a shop selling mementos of "The Western White House," tourist Chuck Yorde wondered aloud why he seemed to be the only visitor in town.
"If his poll numbers were up there above 50-60 percent, this place would probably be a little more jumping," said Yorde, surveying the empty parking spots up and down Lone Star Parkway.
The Youngstown, Ohio, resident was almost apologetic about his own presence in the town that hosts President George W. Bush's 1,600-acre ranch. He said he was visiting his sister in nearby Gatesville who's "a big Bush fan. ... She dragged me over here."
Shuttered storefronts and eroding retail sales figures show tourism and the Bush memorabilia business are slumping in this once-sleepy farm-and-ranch town of 732 residents.
A for-sale sign is the only thing in the smudged window of the turn-of-the-century, two-story brick building that once housed the Crawford Country Style store. "The numbers just weren't working," said Norma Nelson Crow, who closed the shop at the beginning of the year.
Traffic and sales of shirts, caps, refrigerator magnets and other presidential curios began slowing in 2005, she said. By the summer of 2006, Crow said, her hopes for a turnaround in the business faded. "It was my baby and I loved that little store, but I had to face the facts," she said.
Retail sales figures kept by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts document the slide. In 2004, gross retail sales in Crawford totaled $2.6 million. They fell to $2 million in 2006, down by more than 20 percent.
Nobody is saying things have improved at all this year. "It's pretty slow, slower than last summer," Jamie Burgess, manager of the Red Bull gift shop, said last week.
Only a handful of customers came in during the day to browse her collection of Bush curios and homespun decorative items sold on consignment.
Bill Johnson, owner of the Yellow Rose, Crawford's largest gift shop, said he has been stocking more Texana and Americana items in response to the drop-off in sales of Bush merchandise. "We're changing our mix," Johnson said. "As a business we have to do what we have to do to be successful."
Ups and downs
All but abandoned after retail businesses closed or moved in the late 1950s and 1960s, Crawford sprang to life after Bush purchased the Prairie Chapel Ranch in 1999 and began campaigning for the presidency. Storefronts in the crossroads settlement that were empty before the Bushes put the town on the map were renovated into shops selling presidential items. Crawford today is home to a bank, an antique store, two gas stations and some grain silos.
Everyone agrees that 2004 was the high-water mark for Crawford's tourist trade.
"We had a 'Bush 2004' banner across the front of the store, about 11-foot-by-5-foot, white with red lettering," recalled Crow. "People would come in thinking it was Republican headquarters."
Burgess said the president's sagging popularity is at least partly to blame for the slump in visitors. The latest Newsweek poll conducted last month put the president's approval rating at 26 percent, a record low for his presidency.
The last president with numbers that low was Jimmy Carter, whose hometown of Plains, Ga., went through its own boom-bust cycle on the heels of his popularity.
"Our little town was one block long on one side of the street and we had up to 5,000 people a day here in 1976. They were like ants," recalled lifelong resident C.L. Walters, a clerk at the Plains Historic Inn.
Then came the gasoline crisis, the Russian grain embargo and other problems that soured people on Carter and Plains, Walters said. "In the last two years (of Carter's one-term presidency) we did nothing here, hardly any business at all."
Plains popular again
Today, with Carter having won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize and being recognized for his humanitarian work, Plains hosts visitors to Carter's boyhood farm, now a national historic site, and the church where Carter still teaches Sunday school classes several times a year.
"We know it will drop off after he dies," Walters said.
"But for now we have as many visitors as we've had since the '76 campaign. People come to get a glimpse of him."
In Crawford, merchants say they are waiting to see what will happen when Bush's presidency ends 18 months from now.
Burgess said it was "a big disappointment" that Bush is moving toward building his library and museum in Dallas, more than 100 miles away, rather than 18 miles east in Waco.
"We knew this wouldn't last forever, but we expected it would last longer than this," said Burgess, adding that she is hopeful business will pick up.
Johnson, who owns roofing and pawnshop businesses in Waco, said his Crawford shop still is drawing visitors from places as distant as China and New Zealand.
"There are a lot of people who still believe in this president," said Johnson, who counts himself as one of them.
"As long as Crawford is associated with him, people will come."
thomas.korosec@chron.com