A freckle-faced girl slides out onto a giant tongue and quickly sticks her head up the nose of the colossal head on the third floor of the Maine Discovery Museum in Bangor.

“You found it!” she excitedly tells museum Executive Director Anne Hartmann, who had triggered the switch inside the nose that makes it “sneeze.”

“I was the second one to find it. My brother was the first,” the girl says before scurrying away from the Body Journey exhibit to join her older brother in the karaoke booth to sing their rendition of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”

The “sneeze” is but one of the latest additions to the downtown museum, which Sunday officially celebrated its first anniversary on Bangor’s Main Street.

Last February, state and city leaders gathered outside the old Freese’s building to open the $1.5 million museum, which since has been host to about 92,000 visitors, slightly more than the 90,000 people forecast, according to museum officials.

Those numbers, coupled with 700 more memberships than expected, have given the downtown a much-needed influx of people during the past year, local business owners said.

“We’ve seen a lot more families coming down,” said Chris Geaghan, owner of the nearby Whig and Courier Pub and restaurant, which in response has geared its daytime operation more toward children, offering new crayons and other goodies since the museum’s opening. “Any downtown development is a good thing.”

But more than people, the 21,000-square-foot museum has supplied something a bit more intangible, according to its founding director.

“The biggest thing it brought was a sense of optimism, a confidence about the future,” said Sean Faircloth, the former executive director who resigned his post last summer to launch a congressional bid. “There were bumps along the road … but for me it’s a dream come true.”

One of the bumps, a $300,000 contract dispute with the designer over the cost and scope of the project, was settled with the recent completion of the massive clock hanging outside the museum, according to Hartmann.

The museum’s executive director since September, Hartmann marked the museum’s first anniversary with several special events during the weekend, including puppet shows, $1 admission Sunday and an appearance by a sled dog team.

Hartmann, who came on board after a

stint at Port Discovery children’s museum in Baltimore, said she looks forward to the museum’s future, which eventually will include the replacement of some exhibits.

She said the museum, in the middle of developing its five-year plan, not only has become a pivotal point in the downtown but an important – and fun – resource for families.

“This is a community,” Hartmann said. “It’s a place where parents can stand back and watch their kids learn things the way kids learn things, by experiencing things in a way consistent with their own knowledge.”

Hartmann counted among the museum’s challenges the continuing maintenance of the hands-on exhibits that already have weathered thousands of energetic children.

“And every one of them had 10 little fingers,” Hartmann said.

To celebrate its anniversary, the museum has several events planned during the next two weeks.

For information, visit www.mainediscoverymuseum.org.