Gettysburg Tourist Center Plans Unveiled

The Interior Department unveiled plans Friday for a $40-million visitors’ complex for the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, saying it is the best way to preserve the park’s historic resources while accommodating its many visitors.

The development plan has been the focus of controversy, with some historians arguing the joint government-commercial venture will detract from the park’s historic sites. Local merchants also have complained it will take away business.

But Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said in a statement that the plan, somewhat scaled back from previous versions, “will help restore historic integrity to some of America’s most hallowed ground.”

“It moves the landscape and the battlefield much closer to the way things looked to the brave men who fought there in July 1863 in the battle that changed the course of the Civil War,” Babbitt said.

The National Park Service’s plan calls for an existing visitor center, with its 360-degree panoramic painting of the battle, to be removed from a place near where Pickett’s Charge ended at the Union line.

The $40.4-million visitor center will be built about half a mile southeast, where it will house the painting, a bookstore and an eating area that may include up to 250 seats.

The park service said the new museum will be outside the battle action and, therefore, have less effect on the historic landscape. And it would allow restoration of Ziegler’s Grove, which was the center of the Union battle line and overlooked fields where Union troops turned back the Confederates.

The museum complex, with improved interpretation of the battle, will include a greater emphasis on its causes and consequences as well as the role of the nearby town of Gettysburg, the agency said.

Each year, the site of the 1863 battle brings in 1.8 million tourists who spend more than $100 million for accommodations, meals, sightseeing and souvenirs.

Officials in Gettysburg, with a population of about 7,000, are worried that the new, more expansive visitor complex will take away business from town merchants.

“There will be no incentive for them to go into town,” Gettysburg Councilman Ted Streeter said.

Construction of the complex is being financed through a nonprofit foundation set up by developer Robert Kinsley of York, Pa., with the construction debt to be retired through charitable donations and tourist dollars. The complex would be turned over to the government after the debt is paid.

Park service Director Robert G. Stanton said the driving force behind the development was the need to preserve and protect the battlefield resources and improve the visitors’ experience.