DIXON, Ill. _ One morning back in 1988, a fancier car than usual rolled up to Ronald Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon. It was Monday, and the home-turned-museum was closed, but a well-dressed man walked up and persuaded Kenny Wendland, then a tour guide, to take him through it.
The man fired question after question at Wendland. "What's Ronald Reagan's brother's name?"
"Neil," he answered.
After the tour, the man revealed himself to be Beryl Sprinkel, an economic adviser to Reagan, then in his second term as U.S. president. Though Reagan had been at the museum when it was a fledgling operation, he had asked Sprinkel to check out how it was operating as his time in office was coming to a close. The museum was established as a tourist and educational destination during Reagan's first term and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Wendland is no longer a tour guide there, but he stopped by for a tour during a recent morning. He pulled out a wallet-size photograph of himself standing with the former president. Impressed with Wendland's tour, Sprinkel had offered to introduce him to the president during a future trip to Dixon.
When Wendland volunteered at the home, Reagan was still in office at the height of his popularity, and interest in his northwestern Illinois boyhood home was at a high point.
But 15 years after Reagan's death, the home's future is uncertain. It is run by a nonprofit organization that maintains a museum, visitor center and gift shop, and conducts tours of the home.
Without a financial turnaround, the home is at risk of closing as a tourist destination, saddled with debt and unused property purchased for a grand vision of expansion that never came to fruition, according to its executive director.
Recent tax records show the expenses to run the house far outstrip the revenue it brings in, running at a loss of more than $80,000 per year in recent years.
"We cannot keep bleeding money," said Patrick Gorman, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home nonprofit organization.
The white, two-story house with clapboard siding and a roomy porch sits on a hilly street near the Rock River. The quiet river town of Dixon is about 100 miles west of Chicago and just another 45 miles to the Mississippi River and Iowa border.
Born in nearby Tampico in 1911, Reagan and his family moved into the Dixon home when he was 9, renting the three-bedroom house for about $15 a month. They stayed in the home about three years. Reagan's influence ripples throughout the 15,000-person town where he continued to live into his early 20s. A bronze statue of a young and rugged Reagan wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse stands on the riverfront near the center of town. As you enter Dixon, signs proclaim that it is the site of the former president's formative years.
Reagan's boyhood home is not alone as it confronts financial challenges. Experts say state historical sites struggle for funding amid changes in tourism and waning interest.
"Visitation to these sites is down. People don't go anymore." said William Furry, executive director of the Illinois State Historical Society.
Gorman surmises that interest in Reagan _ who overwhelmingly won two terms as president in the 1980s _ is fading more than a decade after his death. He said there are dwindling numbers of volunteers to work at the home, which saw a small downturn of visitors in the past year.
Annually, the museum usually sees 5,000 to 6,000 visitors, Gorman said. In 1994, a Chicago Tribune report said the home attracted about 20,000 visitors each year.
The historical significance of presidential boyhood homes is debated. One expert said the homes tend to be more meaningful to the communities themselves rather than holding a place of prime importance in American history.
Gorman, though, can't imagine the loss of this piece of history and is launching a campaign to save the home. Furry, of the state's historical society, agrees.
"They are invaluable," Furry said, of the state's historical sites. "Without these, you can't tell the story of Illinois."
