Gettysburg Visitation

[Doug5861]

I was wondering how many people over the past 155 years visited the park. It seems that the current average is around 1,500,00 a year. Has it always been at this level? I know how popular and influential the battle was in the 50 years after but was the park visited like it is now? Are there any records of visitation by year?
I am always awed by the events that happened here but I'm just as awed by the numbers of people who came before me as visitors and touched this monument or photographed people standing there.
I've always been a history buff and Gettysburg is as hard core as you can get.

I don't know if this was ever posted before but while looking for visitor numbers, I found this 2014 Visitor Study done for Destination Gettysburg which was an interesting read.

http://www.destinationgettysburg.com/uploads/files/2015 GB BOD Final June 8.pdf

 

[pamc153PA]

Interesting question. Millions and millions. From literally the day of the battle, there was an interest and a pull to come to the place where the battle happened. It rises and falls over time (high numbers around the centennial, the anniversaries, the movie Gettysburg, the sesquicentennial), but still they come.

At the moment—bus season—many of them are 8th graders.

 

[infomanpa]

I was wondering how many people over the past 155 years visited the park. It seems that the current average is around 1,500,00 a year. Has it always been at this level?

I'm sure that the 1.5 million visitors a year statistic that you quoted could not possibly have been maintained over the past 155 years. For one thing, most people didn't have cars to get there until 60-70 year after the battle.

 

[Pat Young]

I was wondering how many people over the past 155 years visited the park. It seems that the current average is around 1,500,00 a year. Has it always been at this level? I know how popular and influential the battle was in the 50 years after but was the park visited like it is now? Are there any records of visitation by year?
I am always awed by the events that happened here but I'm just as awed by the numbers of people who came before me as visitors and touched this monument or photographed people standing there.
I've always been a history buff and Gettysburg is as hard core as you can get.

I don't know if this was ever posted before but while looking for visitor numbers, I found this 2014 Visitor Study done for Destination Gettysburg which was an interesting read.

http://www.destinationgettysburg.com/uploads/files/2015 GB BOD Final June 8.pdf

You can see annual visitation stats for the Gettysburg from the NPS covering 1934 onward.

https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/Park Specific Reports/Annual Park Recreation Visitation (1904 - Last Calendar Year)?Park=GETT

 

[Pat Young]

The total Gettysburg visitation since 1934 is over 131 million.

 

[Pat Young]

For comparison, Vicksburg had 50 million visitors since 1934. Antietam had a little under 21 million.

Location, locations, location.

 

[Pat Young]

NPS stats can be accessed here:

https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/Reports/Park/GETT

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Hope this isn't off thread, since I'm not sure a count could be made retrospectively? Like @pamc153PA said, tourists arrived while we were still shooting at each other, and a lot of them! I'm only bringing it up because you run into mention of them of all the time, reading on-the-spot accounts. Journals, letters home, reports- it was crazy. Wish I could remember the regiment which posted men to search anyone who looked like tourists, to strip them of relics, July 5th! Several civilians tell of ' sight seers ' asking for lodging, being disappointed there was none, wounded men filling home through the town. Relatives of men killed and wounded poured into town, a lot stayed to help, some all the way from the South, and were taken in by nurses, in their tents or found beds in attics- read hotels filled with ' sight seers '.

Little different than today's visitors, yes, just seems to have been a significant amount of ghoulish visitors, summer of 1863.

 

[Larryh86GT]

Add my wife and I to the count this week.

 

[Doug5861]

You can see annual visitation stats for the Gettysburg from the NPS covering 1934 onward.

https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/Park Specific Reports/Annual Park Recreation Visitation (1904 - Last Calendar Year)?Park=GETT

What would have accounted for the substantial spike in visitation from the late 60"s to mid 70"s. It's a pretty significent increase which afterwards averages out fairly evenly.

 

[JOHN42768]

What would have accounted for the substantial spike in visitation from the late 60"s to mid 70"s. It's a pretty significent increase which afterwards averages out fairly evenly.

The Centennial greatly increased interest in the Civil War. That higher interest carried into the seventies.