Gettysburg-Observation Tower

[Rank and File]

Quit my first job out of college in 1975 and drove from San Diego to see ACW sites. Hit Vicksburg, Shiloh, Franklin, Nashville, all the big ones in northern VA, Antietam, then Gettysburg. Climbed the tour and thought it was intruding on hallowed ground. Got a call that day from a recruiter that I needed to get back to San Diego asap for a job interview that became my career. Took me almost 30 years to get back to the battlefield.

 

[Buckeye Bill]

The George Meade monument is taller than the tower? Wow! That is one huge Union monument!!!

Bill

 

[111thNYSV]

I remember where I was when that came down. I was at my Grandparents house watching it come down on a tiny tv in the dinning room. I remember my grandpa talking about the explosives as he had some experience with them being a demolitions guy in his WW2 paratrooper days.

 

[Irishtom29]

The mound at Waterloo appears to be a worse intrusion. And I read that collecting the dirt for the mound affected the lay of the land.

 

[Pat Answer]

The mound at Waterloo appears to be a worse intrusion. And I read that collecting the dirt for the mound affected the lay of the land.

View attachment 360919

I'd forgotten about this. Wow. Whereabouts does this pimple sit? (If you say near Hougoumont, or La Haye Sainte, or Papelotte, I'll know what you're talking about.)

 

[Forks of the Ohio]

I went up to the top of it when I was in high school!

At the time, I didn't realize that battlefield preservationists wanted to get rid of the tower. I just thought that it was something cool to visit.

(I went on a day trip to Gettysburg when I was in high school.)

 

[Forks of the Ohio]

This would be a good topic for a new thread about what all they erected/created on the battlefield. I had heard once that there was a restaurant on LRT.

I agree.

I gotta admit that even when I visited Gettysburg as a kid, I thought that the place had a lot of cheesy tourist trappy stuff.

I mean, I get why all of the stuff is there.

My dad taught high school throughout the school year and he worked for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania every summer. One year, his summer employer sent him to the Gettysburg area for a week of training. My parents took our pop-up camper to a private campground in Gettsyburg for that week of training, and took us kids (four of us at that time) for a family trip. I was a teenager, and I was the oldest. My mom had to find activities to keep all four of us kids occupied for that whole week. We swam in the campground pool. We toured the battlefield and the Eisenhower farm. However, we also went miniature golfing. We went to that wax museum where the wax President Lincoln recited the Gettysburg Address at the very end of the museum tour. We did a bunch of cheesy tourist stuff.

I was amazed by how many souvenir stands I saw in Gettysburg.

(Funny, on that trip, we didn't go up in the tower. I bet that my mom thought that it was too expensive for the entire family to visit. We did go to the Cyclorama, but I am pretty sure that the Cyclorama had free admission back then.)

 

[EJ Zander]

I read a paper "The Taking of the Gettysburg Tower" by John Latschar that in 1971 Secretary of the Interior Nathaniel Reed had an assistant negotiate with Ottenstein to have the then proposed tower location moved. It was supposed to have been built at a different location. Not sure where. As a result the tower was built where it was and the owner(s) where even granted a right away across NPS property to access the new site where it was eventually built.

 

[connecticut yankee]

"The Taking of the Gettysburg Tower". Interesting.

http://www.georgewright.org/181latschar.pdf

nps photo

 

[EJ Zander]

This agreement apparently stymied the State of PA's efforts to block the tower in court for a time.

 

[Irishtom29]

I'd forgotten about this. Wow. Whereabouts does this pimple sit? (If you say near Hougoumont, or La Haye Sainte, or Papelotte, I'll know what you're talking about.)

Not far west of La Haye Sainte.

 

[7thWisconsin]

I signed several petitions when I was in elementary school asking that the tower NOT be built at all. I went up in it twice: once when it was about a year old, and once when I was in college because admission was free with my college ID. I didn't care for the view. The parts of the field that are wooded are completely hidden from that height. It was a very handy landmark to help tourists unfamiliar with the area, though. At night, there were red lights at the top, so it looked like it had angry glowing eyes. My college roommate dubbed it "the Walker" (from "War of the Worlds") so that's what we all nicknamed it.

 

[FarawayFriend]

"The Taking of the Gettysburg Tower". Interesting.

http://www.georgewright.org/181latschar.pdf

View attachment 360925nps photo

Great article!

I must confess, as the Tower looked that futuristic, it seemed like a look from the future into the past, like a time machine.
A reminder that all things must pass.
I would have liked to go up and have a complete view over the battlefield. I did not know the tower stood until 2000 ... well, another missed chance. It might have been ugly, but it sure provided great views.

 

[Irishtom29]

@FarawayFriend

Speaking of Waterloo and La Haye Sainte; La Haye Sainte, a walled farm complex, was where the Kings German Legion, Hanoverian troops of the British army, made a stand against overwhelming odds.

 

[James N.]

Looks like this would've been a good candidate for Throwback Thursday - On the occasions I visited Gettysburg during it's existence I purposefully tried to avoid getting it in any of my shots!

 

[James N.]

I agree.

I gotta admit that even when I visited Gettysburg as a kid, I thought that the place had a lot of cheesy tourist trappy stuff.

I mean, I get why all of the stuff is there.

My dad taught high school throughout the school year and he worked for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania every summer. One year, his summer employer sent him to the Gettysburg area for a week of training. My parents took our pop-up camper to a private campground in Gettsyburg for that week of training, and took us kids (four of us at that time) for a family trip. I was a teenager, and I was the oldest. My mom had to find activities to keep all four of us kids occupied for that whole week. We swam in the campground pool. We toured the battlefield and the Eisenhower farm. However, we also went miniature golfing. We went to that wax museum where the wax President Lincoln recited the Gettysburg Address at the very end of the museum tour. We did a bunch of cheesy tourist stuff.

I was amazed by how many souvenir stands I saw in Gettysburg.

(Funny, on that trip, we didn't go up in the tower. I bet that my mom thought that it was too expensive for the entire family to visit. We did go to the Cyclorama, but I am pretty sure that the Cyclorama had free admission back then.)

You might enjoy "revisiting" some of those places in my previous thread, though at this time there was as yet NO tower (scroll down for some of the various tourist traps):

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/gettysburg-during-the-centennial.125469/

These postcards from the same era might look familiar too:

Gettysburg Battlefield in Postcards From the Civil War Centennial, 1961 - 1964 | Gettysburg

ETERNAL LIGHT PEACE MEMORIAL - Located on the field of battle is this monumental emblem, symbolic of peace and union, dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, July, 1938. In anticipation of another upcoming September to Remember gathering...

civilwartalk.com

 

[James N.]

The mound at Waterloo appears to be a worse intrusion. And I read that collecting the dirt for the mound affected the lay of the land.

View attachment 360919

I'd forgotten about this. Wow. Whereabouts does this pimple sit? (If you say near Hougoumont, or La Haye Sainte, or Papelotte, I'll know what you're talking about.)

It's somewhat on the Anglo-Allied line on the ridge between La Haye Sainte and Hougomont; it's construction destroyed the notorious Sunken Road of Les Misarables fame as well as part of the ridge there. As you may also be aware, at least technically the Duke of Wellington's second-in-command was the twentysomething Prince of Orange, son of the new King of the Belgians and referred to by the British as The Little Frog. When he eventually succeeded to the throne, he wanted to glorify himself and his virtually nonexistent part in the battle, so ordered the construction of this travesty in the 1830's.

 

[Pat Answer]

It's somewhat on the Anglo-Allied line on the ridge between La Haye Sainte and Hougomont; it's construction destroyed the notorious Sunken Road of Les Misarables fame as well as part of the ridge there. As you may also be aware, at least technically the Duke of Wellington's second-in-command was the twentysomething Prince of Orange, son of the new King of the Belgians and referred to by the British as The Little Frog. When he eventually succeeded to the throne, he wanted to glorify himself and his virtually nonexistent part in the battle, so ordered the construction of this travesty in the 1830's.

I didn't know the part about the Prince of Orange. Now that has to be the most impressive piece of revisionist history since Rameses II...

 

[FarawayFriend]

@FarawayFriend

Speaking of Waterloo and La Haye Sainte; La Haye Sainte, a walled farm complex, was where the Kings German Legion, Hanoverian troops of the British army, made a stand against overwhelming odds.

View attachment 360965View attachment 360966

Thanks for sharing the photos! We still have streets named after Major Baring and Colonel von Ompteda in Hannover. And we have a Waterloo Square with a victory column.
Hannoverians were present at Waterloo because between 1714 and 1834 the Kings of Hannover were also the Kings of Great Britain.
That is also why in New Bern, in Tryon Palace, the first permanent residence of a British governor in the colonies, they have a picture of our King and Queen of Hannover hanging in the grand dining room!

 

[FarawayFriend]

It's somewhat on the Anglo-Allied line on the ridge between La Haye Sainte and Hougomont; it's construction destroyed the notorious Sunken Road of Les Misarables fame as well as part of the ridge there. As you may also be aware, at least technically the Duke of Wellington's second-in-command was the twentysomething Prince of Orange, son of the new King of the Belgians and referred to by the British as The Little Frog. When he eventually succeeded to the throne, he wanted to glorify himself and his virtually nonexistent part in the battle, so ordered the construction of this travesty in the 1830's.

I didn't know the part about the Prince of Orange. Now that has to be the most impressive piece of revisionist history since Rameses II...

I can warmly recommend the novel "Sharpe's Waterloo" by Bernard Cornwell. The Prince of Orange who needlessly and uselessly sacrificed so many men at Waterloo plays an important part in that book.