Community markets, educational presentations and monthly movies are only a few of the events that the Nolan Center hosts on a regular basis, but its main source of revenue comes from visitors to the museum.

The center saw a big bump in museum guests and gift shop sales this summer with increased cruise traffic bringing more tourists to Wrangell.

An administrative report for the Nolan Center shared at the Oct. 13 assembly meeting showed a 42% revenue increase over the previous year. The increase came after cruise ship berths for the 2026 season nearly doubled from the previous year, with 75,000 available berths.

The rise in museum guests paints an optimistic picture of the center’s financial future.

“We’re really grateful for it because it helps us make up some of the revenue that the city obviously subsidizes the Nolan Center for operational costs,” said Nolan Center Director Jeanie Arnold. 

She said there are two types of visitors who come through the museum: Tour groups organized with local tour companies, and walk-in visitors who wander in on their own. They saw the most growth — a 62% increase — across the walk-in guests.

These independent guests also pay more, at $12 per out-of-state visitor or $8 for Alaskans. The museum gives an admission discount to tours, charging only $5 per person for groups of 10 or more.

“Compared to 2025, our general admission was about $27,924 in revenue, and this year for 2026 we jumped up to $45,228,” Arnold said.

They also saw a nearly $70,000 increase in gift shop sales from the previous year.

Arnold, originally from Anchorage, had worked in behavioral health for a decade before stepping into her role as director in 2023. She said that, although she had some tourism industry experience like many Alaskans, she had no prior experience working with museums. For that she was able to seek mentorship through a nonprofit called Museums Alaska, but she said the museum is a small part of her overall work at the center.

“Jeanie was the very first director I hired, and she’s been a phenomenal Nolan Center director,” said Borough Manager Mason Villarma. “All the credit goes to her for increasing the revenues.”

Villarma said the borough’s long-term goal is for the Nolan Center to become completely self-supporting. The borough currently subsidizes the center at around a quarter-million dollars annually according to Villarma, while the other portion comes from the Nolan Center Trust established by James and Elsie Nolan. 

“That’s about 10% of our current tax base for property taxes,” Villarma said of the municipal funding for the Nolan Center. “That’s a pretty heavy proportion, especially when we struggle to find money for roads and critical infrastructure priorities.”

He said that with the relationships the borough has built with cruise companies like American Cruise Lines and efforts like the waterfront revitalization project, he could see a future where a robust tourism industry could make it possible to reduce the amount of the center’s budget that the borough has to cover.

“I think there’s an opportunity to use the visitor economy and the independent traveler economy industry to be able to really boost growth in the Nolan Center and profitability to the point where we can offer all this stuff to the community in the off-season at no cost to them,” Villarma said. “And we can refocus some of those tax dollars toward essential infrastructure.”