Civil War Town Spurns Invasion of Tourists

A push for tourism at Civil War sites could bring thousands more visitors to the Antietam National Battlefield, but when they arrive, they’ll find no big welcome from the little town that witnessed the bloodiest day of the war.

No McDonald’s, no motels, no supermarkets.

Tourists who stop in Sharpsburg to see where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee conferred with his officers or to photograph the artillery-scarred stone houses nearby can buy a T-shirt at the lone gift shop and grab an ice cream cone or cookie.

But if they want more, locals point them toward Hagerstown, 12 miles to the north, or Shepherdstown, W.Va., three miles south across the Potomac River.

“We’ll give them directions,” said Denise Troxell, a member of the Sharpsburg Town Council. “We’ll smile and wave, whatever.”

But that’s all.

“It’s not an anti-visitor thing,” she said. Instead, she and others in town explained, it might be called an anti-Gettysburg thing. Or an anti-Williamsburg thing.

It is a powerful determination among most of the town’s approximately 800 residents not to be invaded by hucksters intent on exploiting the state’s most significant Civil War attraction.

Sharpsburg’s dread of economic opportunism led council members to stall for several months before recently endorsing a proposed state Civil War Heritage Area comprising parts of Washington, Frederick and Carroll counties. The designation would make participating local governments, nonprofit groups and private properties eligible for grants, loans and tax credits to preserve and promote historic sites.

Council members tentatively approved the resolution this month after gaining assurances that they could help shape the final plan and bow out if they don’t like it.

“We are afraid it will encourage too much tourism in and around the battlefield and in Sharpsburg,” Mayor George Kesler said.

Much of the rocky land that surrounds the town and battlefield is protected from development by scenic and agricultural preservation programs, making development on the scale of Gettysburg, Pa.--with miniature golf courses and Go-Kart tracks--unlikely.

But Sharpsburg officials are kidding themselves if they think they can control tourism, said Don Stoops, co-owner of the downtown Sharpsburg Arsenal, a gift and antique weapons shop.

“The tourists are going to come, no matter what the town does,” he said. “They need places to eat and sleep.”

Stoops, who lives in Waynesboro, Pa., opened his shop in a former funeral home nearly two years ago without resistance from town officials.

He said he deplores crass commercialism but thinks Sharpsburg should create a downtown historic district with shops and restaurants for visitors. Currently, the entire town is zoned for residential use. Businesses like Stoops’ and the ice cream shop and bakery across the street are exceptions.

The Antietam battlefield drew more than 275,000 visitors last year, an increase of more than 100,000 since 1995. It was here that 23,000 combatants were killed, wounded or captured in a Sept. 17, 1862, clash that halted the Confederates’ first invasion of the North.

The battle was a turning point in history, scholars say. A Southern victory at Sharpsburg, 70 miles from Washington, might have brought Britain into the war as their ally. Union success was the stroke Abraham Lincoln had waited for before announcing the Emancipation Proclamation.

Research suggests that those who visit Antietam are better educated, spend more money and stay longer than the average tourist, according to Janet Davis, the Frederick County planner who is coordinating the Civil War Heritage Area effort.

“This has the potential for having some far-reaching effects on snagging the tourist dollar,” she said.

But Sharpsburg officials, who also have snubbed movie producers and reenactment organizers, say some things matter more than money.

“This is very much a regular little town. The people know each other, they help each other. It’s a community,” Troxell said. “Money is important, but quality of life is way more important.”