Reply #77: I just clicked the link. [View All]

[Catherine Vincent]

It worked for me. Here's some of the article:

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

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."

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You have to scroll to the bottom for the comments. It's several pages of comments. Mostly anti-Bush.