Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. County/parish: Adams.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places October 15, 1966. NRIS 66000642.
135 contributing buildings. 112 contributing sites. 277 contributing structures. 929 contributing objects.Also known as:
The Gettysburg National Military Park protects and interprets the landscape of the Battle of Gettysburg, fought over three days between July 1 and July 3, 1863, during the American Civil War. The park, in the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania area, is managed by the National Park Service. Totaling 3,785 acres (1,532 ha) of area, it is mostly located in Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania, where it takes up almost 20% of the municipality's area. Portions of the park extend into the Gettysburg borough limits, including the Soldiers' National Cemetery, and an exclave is in Mount Pleasant Township.
The park's properties include most of the Gettysburg Battlefield, many of the battle's support areas during the battle, including reserve, supply, and hospital locations, and several non-battle areas associated with the battle's aftermath and commemoration, including the Gettysburg National Cemetery, where the Gettysburg Address was delivered by then President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863. Many of the park's 43,000 American Civil War artifacts are displayed in the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center.
The park has more wooded land than in 1863, and the National Park Service has an ongoing program to restore portions of the battlefield to their historical non-wooded conditions, as well as to replant historic orchards and woodlots that are now missing. In addition, the NPS is restoring native plants to meadows and edges of roads, to encourage habitat as well as provide for historic landscape. There are also considerably more roads and facilities for the benefit of tourists visiting the battlefield park.
Attendance in 2018 was 950,000, a decline of 86% since 1970. The five major Civil War battlefield parks operated by the National Park Service (Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Vicksburg) had a combined 3.1 million visitors in 2018, down 70% from 10.2 million in 1970.
The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71995661