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Mark Trotter has spent 11 years working to turn Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park and Museum from what was essentially a restroom stop into a money-generating venture.
The historical military park in Fairfield hasn't quite reached a point where it is paying for itself, but the facility did avoid being listed by state auditors as one of the five parks with the highest loss per visitor.
Avoiding the list, which some consider as the first five parks that face closure due to Legislature-induced budget cuts, was a relief for Trotter, and it didn't come easily or quickly.
"We have changed quite a bit in the last decade. There wasn't a gift shop, and we were only open six months [of the year] when I started," said Trotter, who manages the park 20 miles west of Lehi.
Camp Floyd was opened in 1958 — 100 years after it was used by U.S. soldiers sent to quell a Mormon rebellion that never came into being. In addition to serving as a historical military complex where the Civil War is discussed, the park includes connections to the past as a Pony Express stop.
Naturally, period-themed youth camps were some of the first programs Trotter developed.
"A small museum was just not enough incentive for people to make the trip," he said. "We started the camps to attract people interested in the local history, and we targeted kids 8 to 11 years old."
That demographic was targeted to coincide with students in the fourth and fifth grades as school curriculum involves Utah and Civil War history in those years. Teachers along the Wasatch Front responded by organizing field trips to Camp Floyd. The state park handled 50 elementary school field trips last year. Recognizing that schools, like state parks, are faced with tight budgets, Trotter asks for $1 per student.
More substantial money comes from the "History Camps for Kids." The three-day youth camps — with 24 kids in each taking on the role of mid-19th century soldiers — are held five times a year. Participants pay $90 to learn what life was like in the days before the Civil War and leave the park each day with "military furlough" papers.
"A majority of the kids are repeats or come from word of mouth," Trotter said. "We entice them to come back and rank up. They all start as a private, and if they come back they are a corporal, sergeant and, finally, a lieutenant. We announce those camps in January, and they are usually full by the end of February."
Returning campers end up unofficially helping run the program based on their past experiences, which takes some of the pressure off of the limited number of staffers at the park.
A similar camp, targeting Scouting groups, includes an overnight stay at Camp Floyd and costs $20 for each participant. Boy Scouts can earn the American Heritage merit badge and the National Historic Trails Award after attending this camp offered 16 times each year.
While girls are invited to the camps, there is also a "Ladies of Camp Floyd" day camp that provides a sense of what it would have been like to be a woman at the site more than 100 years ago.
Civil War military encampments on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends draw crowds. Visitors can observe events on those weekends for free, but there is a fee of $2 per person or $6 per family to tour the museums at the park.
Trotter's most recent idea was to create "Paranormal Investigations" for the public each fall in the park's buildings, which, rumor has it, are haunted. He said a half-dozen "professional" paranormal investigators have inspected the park and come away with interesting results. The popularity of the event means instead of just one night of investigations this fall, there may be several, and participants can expect to pay a bit more for the experience.
But Trotter doesn't expect the fee increases to make a major dent in the budget woes his park faces on an annual basis.
"Historical museums and parks are never going to make money like a business," he said. "They were never intended to be a business. The parks were designated for their historical values; to preserve them for future generations. How do you put a cost on that?"
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