The Silver Queen Preservation News, Winter 2006The world stops at the Visitor Center in growing numbers |
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By Bill Wilson In 2005, according to our best count, 254,815 visitors stopped at the Gateway Visitor Center. This number represents an 11 percent increase over 2004. The visitor count was up in every month except in July and August; the declines in those two months may be due in part to the vagaries of high gas prices and highway rockfalls. Nonetheless, July once again was the peak month, with 34,750 visitors, or about 1,120 per day. For the year, the average count was 626 visitors per day. The new Gateway Visitor Center has been operating for just two years, but HGI began offering visitor services in 1996 in the abandoned service station that stood on the same site. Sometime in August 2005 our one millionth visitor since 1996 made use of those services. At the current rate, it will probably take only three or four more years to double that figure. Visitors are encouraged to insert pins in maps to indicate the places where they live. Four large wall maps-USA, Colorado, the World, and Europe-are available for this purpose. Each pin represents one or more visitors traveling together from the same city. At the end of each month the pins are counted and pulled. A running log is kept showing the number of pins in three categories: in each state, in each Colorado county, and in each country (plus other distinct geographic entities, such as possessions). In 2005, the total number of pins was 16,969.
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In both 2004 and 2005, visitors inserted pins in all 50 states (plus D.C.) and all 62 Colorado counties (plus the Denver Metro area). In 2005, the pins represented 143 countries and 14 other geographic entities. The distribution of the three categories is nearly identical in 2004 and 2005: about 69 percent were from the USA (excluding Colorado), about 18 percent from Colorado, and about 13 percent from countries other than the USA. Probably it is not surprising that all states and all Colorado counties have been represented each year, but the very large number of different countries seems extraordinary. In fact, in 2005, visitors inserted pins in 35 countries that did not have pins in 2004. These new additions to our collection include, for example, such far-flung locales as Albania, Azores, Belize, Bhutan, Canary Islands, Ethiopia, Lesser Antilles, Moldova, Rwanda, Singapore, and Tajikistan. We now have had visitors from 183 recognized countries, plus 21 other geographic entities! The accompanying table shows the five states, counties, and countries that had the most pins in 2005, along with the number of pins for each. California, the Denver Metro area, and Canada top the three lists. The makeup of the top five in each category in 2005 is identical to that of the top five in 2004, and even the order is the same for states and countries in those two years. |
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