Funeral Museum at Death’s Door

A Funeral Museum at Death’s Door

Excerpts:

A stone’s throw from Lincoln’s tomb, this unusual cultural repository is an unmistakable reminder that everyone’s days are numbered. Now it seems the same might be true of the museum itself.

Unable to attract enough visitors — the Iowa woman is apparently not the only one who gets the creeps about this place — the museum is struggling to stay alive. The curator position has been eliminated, and the museum’s hours have been cut to appointments only.

These have been difficult days in Springfield, the Illinois capital, as the economy has nose-dived and many people have lost their jobs. Not even funeral parlors are immune, Mr. Marsh said, as survivors sometimes choose thriftier ways to pay respects.

...

Since its founding in 1999, [the museum] has failed to become a destination. In recent years, the museum has attracted about 8,000 customers annually; tickets for adults are $4 and those for children are $2. It has not been nearly enough to cover expenses.

“The original idea was that we’d get enough spillover from people visiting the Lincoln sites,” Mr. Marsh said. “But for whatever reason, that just hasn’t happened. When a business isn’t paying its way, as everyone knows, you have trouble.”

Comment: We visited last year on our Springfield IL Lincoln trip (Lincoln museum, Lincoln tomb, etc). Not a destination museum but it was interesting. I think I did a 30 min walk through. Looks like their website is down today: Funeral Museum.