Gettysburg During the Centennial

[samuel orris]

Wow! Did you see the cost to hire a LBG? What's the fee now?

 

[Northern Light]

Wow! Did you see the cost to hire a LBG? What's the fee now?

Last time I was there it was about$60.00.

 

[nitrofd]

Last time I was there it was about$60.00.

But gas was 30 cents a gallon back then.

 

[EJ Zander]

Great post. I really enjoyed all the pictures. You did an awesome wielding that Brownie camera.Driving here from Texas pre interstate to see the field, wow. Hearing things like that keeps me from taking this place for granted, thank you. To visit my Mom's side we made the 1200 mile trip to FL regularly preinterstate, it was no picnic. I was in the truck bed.

 

[Patrick H]

JamesN, I have truly enjoyed this thread. Something about it captured my imagination in a way that contemporary things don't. I guess you were able to take me back to my own teenage years (I'm about the same age as you) and see things as a thirteen year old again. Many thanks! I don't want your thread to end!

 

[James N.]

JamesN, I have truly enjoyed this thread. Something about it captured my imagination in a way that contemporary things don't. I guess you were able to take me back to my own teenage years (I'm about the same age as you) and see things as a thirteen year old again. Many thanks! I don't want your thread to end!

All good things... I think I used everything I'd saved in my 2 scrapbooks of these trips except several period commercial postcards showing some of the monuments, etc.

 

[rosefiend]

This is cool stuff. Thanks so much for posting it.

Now I'm starting to get a little (more) excited about this trip. I need to buy some books!

 

[James N.]

This is cool stuff. Thanks so much for posting it.

Now I'm starting to get a little (more) excited about this trip. I need to buy some books!

Of course that was the idea! I think the Stackpole-Nye guidebook I mentioned is still available as are doubtless many others that are far newer.

 

[huskerblitz]

I was going to mention, I have a few old brochures found in some old books I bought. The most recent was a 1976 Vicksburg Vintage brochure. I'm not sure where I put the others, but I know one is from Gettysburg a number of years ago (i.e. meaning before I was born).

 

[James N.]

I was going to mention, I have a few old brochures found in some old books I bought. The most recent was a 1976 Vicksburg Vintage brochure. I'm not sure where I put the others, but I know one is from Gettysburg a number of years ago (i.e. meaning before I was born).

The best thing I ever found in a book (while browsing in a huge used bookstore) was in John Toland's biography Adolf Hitler - a crisp, new $50 bill!

 

[7thWisconsin]

What a great trip down memory lane. That's the Gettysburg I first visited as a child. How fortunate you were to stay at the Peace Light Inn. My parents honeymooned in Gettysburg. They stayed at the Quality across from the wax museum. Although the quality of tourist attractions has improved in the last 30 years, I kinda miss the kitchy tourist traps of the 60s: the wax museum most of all, Fantasyland, Fort Defiance, Charlie Weaver's joint... they were very kid friendly. I bought a lot of WW2 junk at a military museum that used to be across Baltimore St and just down the road from the cemetery gate. I disremember the name. The owner was a bit of a jerk, but he had an awesome collection on display.
I used to collect those brochures when I was a kid. No kidding, during the winter when I'd get cabin fever, I'd take them, my postcard folders and Viewmaster reels from Gettysburg and pretend I was touring the town.
I think it's time for my 10 year old and I to take a road trip

 

[James N.]

JamesN, I have truly enjoyed this thread. Something about it captured my imagination in a way that contemporary things don't. I guess you were able to take me back to my own teenage years (I'm about the same age as you) and see things as a thirteen year old again. Many thanks! I don't want your thread to end!

Not exactly a continuation, but a certainly related theme you might also enjoy: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/ge...om-the-civil-war-centennial-1961-1964.138421/

 

[7thWisconsin]

I have that postcard in a postcard folder! My parents honeymooned in Gettysburg in 1960. I kept historic site folders as keepsakes when I was little. Now, I have dozens. Remember the Park Service maps that were a solid single color on the outside, with the driving tour map and pertinent information printed on the other side, folded up into about a 3x5 rectangle? Yep. Bull Run, Charleston, Richmond, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Appomattox Courthouse, Custer Battlefield... (Don't try to use the maps to navigate now!)
Sometimes I miss the "Old Gettysburg." The tourist scene has become very much upscale and "gentrified." We lost a little piece of Americana with the slow passing of places like the Dobbin House Diorama, Longstreet's HQ lemonade stand, the wax museum... <sigh> sic transit and all that. Don't miss the tower, though!

 

[Malingerer]

Centennial Battlefield Tour, Part III
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The High-Water Mark Monument at the famous copse of Trees.

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The monument marking the spot of Lewis Addison Armistead's mortal wounding in the foreground with the Angle in the Stone Wall in the background.

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George Gordon Meade's headquarters in the tiny Leciester House.

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East Cemetery Hill, dominated by the equestrian statue of Winfield Scott Hancock.

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Above, 10-pounder Parrott rifle on Culp's Hill; below, view from the tower there looking toward Round Top in the distance at left with Cemetery Hill barely visible at right.

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The tour ends on a note of reconciliation appropriate for the times with the story (possibly apocryphal!) of soldiers from both sides sharing Spangler's Spring the night of July 2.

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Another source I found extremely useful both in 1961 and 1964 which was much more informative than either the NPS tour folder or guidebook was this one by Lt. Gen. Edward J. Stackpole with excellent diagrammatic maps by his longtime collaborator Col. Wilbur S. Nye. Note there are 22 stops which include much more than the NPS tour. The only drawback to this is that some of the park roads have changed becoming one-way since its original publication, though a revised edition is still sold in Gettysburg's souvenir shops!

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This is the end of the tour of the battlefield itself, but next time I will show you some of my favorite tourist haunts within the town and environs, so look for Part IV!

I like the tour route - down Herr Ridge and past Black Horse Tavern - a taste of Longstreets July 2nd march.

 

[James N.]

I like the tour route - down Herr Ridge and past Black Horse Tavern - a taste of Longstreets July 2nd march.

It changed between this visit in 1961 and my return in 1964. I'll post the 1964 Gettysburg NMP folder showing that route at the end of the Postcards thread so you can compare them.

 

[Malingerer]

It changed between this visit in 1961 and my return in 1964. I'll post the 1964 Gettysburg NMP folder showing that route at the end of the Postcards thread so you can compare them.

I'm guessing that Herr Ridge was a bit different than now - more farms, fewer houses, etc,.. .

 

[James N.]

I have that postcard in a postcard folder! My parents honeymooned in Gettysburg in 1960. I kept historic site folders as keepsakes when I was little. Now, I have dozens. Remember the Park Service maps that were a solid single color on the outside, with the driving tour map and pertinent information printed on the other side, folded up into about a 3x5 rectangle? Yep. Bull Run, Charleston, Richmond, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Appomattox Courthouse, Custer Battlefield... (Don't try to use the maps to navigate now!)
Sometimes I miss the "Old Gettysburg." The tourist scene has become very much upscale and "gentrified." We lost a little piece of Americana with the slow passing of places like the Dobbin House Diorama, Longstreet's HQ lemonade stand, the wax museum... <sigh> sic transit and all that. Don't miss the tower, though!

You have to mean THESE cheap, awful things that date from the era of the Vietnam War when all else was suborned to pouring money down that particular rathole. I too have a dozen or more from my travels back then - my Gettysburg here is dated 1970 though it was several years after that, probably in the 1980's, before I returned. ( I may have gotten it from my friend Mike @mkyzzzrdet who visited here in the 70's. ) Here are scans of the complete, unfolded leaflet:

Note that with the construction of the Centennial Visitor/Cyclorama Center, the park tour route changed. Now it began from the park headquarters/visitor center/museum at #1 The Angle and ended at #17 the National Cemetery, completely bypassing Round Top and Confederate jump-off positions on Warfield Ridge and minimizing the first day's battlefield to four stops.

 

[7thWisconsin]

Yes! That's it! Terrible tour. Showed locations completely out of order and context. We never drove it after 72; we always used the tape tour route from the wax museum. After a few years, we had the route memorized.

 

[JOHN42768]

Thanks for the memories

 

[donna]

Wonderful thread. I went there the first time with my parents. It was back in those days. So many memories. I was about 12.