The Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut built a museum next door in 2003 using money it did not have, with an eye towards an influx of visitors following a Ken Burns film. The hordes of tourists did not arrive, the loan was restructured, staff was reduced to 17 from 50, and the state had to help out with $3.5 million in bond money to pay down the remaining $11 million. And still, the museum is in debt and the cost of utilities are rising. The best path forward may be to forge an alliance with the neighboring Harriet Beecher Stowe House which has an endowment. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s grandniece, Katherine Seymour Day, was a member of the group that purchased the Mark Twain residence to save it from demolition in the 1920s.