Friends of Fort Knox expand services role

PROSPECT – A local friends group has taken over responsibility for some of the visitor services at Fort Knox State Historic Site.

A contract recently signed with the Maine Department of Conbservation’s Bureau of Parks and Lands, delegates fee collection and interpretive services at the fort to the Friends of Fort Knox in exchange for a portion of the income from visitors fees.

Under the terms of the agreement, the organization will receive 50 percent of the gate fees it collects at Fort Knox, according to Friends Executive Director Leon Seymour.

Last year, estimated revenues at the popular park totaled about $66,000, he said.

In return, the group will provide staff to collect visitors fees and conduct tours of the historic site. The arrangement, which Seymour called a “watershed event,” will allow the group to better fulfill its mission, he said.

“We can enhance the visitor experience, which should result in return visits and help to create support for our ongoing preservation efforts at the fort,” he said.

This may be the first agreement of its kind between the state and a friends group, Seymour said, and is the result of discussions between the organization and the state during the past year.

“The state really deserves some credit for being willing to think outside the box,” he said.

According to Bureau of Parks and Lands Director Tom Morrison, the contract, which went into effect May 1, will allow the state to reassign its fee collection staff to other facilities nearby where fees in the past have been paid on a voluntary basis. Morrison anticipates that those efforts will offset the state’s loss of income at Fort Knox.

“In these times of budget uncertainties, working closely with our community partners presents us with opportunities to increase our effectiveness while accomplishing our mission,” Morrison said in a printed statement. “This contract allows us to increase the number of special programs and fort tours for our visitors while we continue to focus on resource protection and preservation.”

The contract runs from May 1 to Nov. 1, when the fort closes for the season. It is considered a pilot project and will be evaluated at the end of the season.

The Friends will add an air of authenticity to its new role, Seymour said.

Its gatekeepers and tour guides will be dressed in period costumes representing women of the 1850s and 1860s, and Civil War-era soldiers who would have been stationed at the fort, he said.

In addition, the organization hopes to expand the number of tours available and to bring in more groups, including tour groups.

It will continue to operate the gift shop and exhibit space at the visitor and education center, and also will work to expand its schedule of special programs, concerts and encampments at the fort.

Friends volunteers have provided tours in the past, and the contract will expand that program. The organization also expects to hire four or five part-time staff and will still rely on about a dozen volunteers.

For the past 10 years, the Friends group has worked to preserve the fort, which was built in 1844 during a border dispute between the United States and Great Britain.

The group’s efforts have included a major roof repair and development of the Visitor and Education Center in the former torpedo room.