In the 1980s, the unemployment of Dubuque was 20 percent, and we were on the covers of national magazines. There were T-shirts printed that said, “Will the last one out of Dubuque please turn off the lights?”

When the museum opened in 1980, we already had an eye toward improvement and were thinking of a much bigger picture. At that time, we were only using one-third of our building space. In fact, we didn’t even have any heat for the first five years.

We had several smaller expansions over the next two decades, including the establishment of a National Rivers Hall of Fame.

Then we initiated a major expansion that we completed in 2003, when we reopened as the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium.

I think the key is to go beyond the needs of the museum. In our case, the museum raised money for the city’s river walk. Usually it’s the other way around. Usually museums have their hands out asking cities for things. Granted, it was only a small amount, but it was symbolic that the museum was working in partnership with the city and private interests.

The museum was interested in education, the city was interested in quality of life and improving the tax base, and the chamber of commerce was interested in making it a more attractive community for businesses to locate. We tried to build something that was a world-class presentation of the Mississippi River. Now we have more than 220,000 visitors per year, and our city has 57,000 people.

We built a new community spirit in Dubuque. It’s always had a can-do spirit, but the attitude that the entire community has about itself and its ability to pull together as a team, it’s a remarkable thing. We just won the All-America City Award in June 2007.

People have even said, “This is the best museum I’ve ever been to in my life,” and, “God bless the forward-thinking people who created this center,” meaning the museum. Someone even suggested a new name for the museum: I can’t believe it’s Dubuque. This is something you would see in New York or London.

I’ve seen children cry when their parents tell them they have to leave, and 11 percent of our visitors say that they stay five to six hours. Our governor came on the day we opened, and he came back six months later and he and his wife stayed for six hours. It wasn’t a media event, it was his day off.

We’ve had people who grew up here who say, “I left Dubuque 25 years ago, and when I came back my jaw dropped.” The transformation of the waterfront and the spirit of the people here has been amazing.

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