Historical musings about the bloodiest Civil War battle on its 147th anniversary and concerns over a continuing gambling debate have intersected in a poetically timed proclamation.
As the anniversary Tuesday of the epic Battle of Gettysburg was commemorated, a group of more than 200 prominent American historians sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board stressing that a proposed casino near Gettysburg battleground will “unavoidably conflict” with the area’s historical significance.
Urging board chairman Gregory Fajt to deny the proposed casino’s application, the letter kindles a modern-day battle between preservationists and casino supporters that opened in 2005, when another application for a casino in the area from the same developer was put forth.
Building a casino close to the battleground “would be an insult to the men who died there,” said James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era” and professor emeritus of United States history at Princeton University.
Some 160,000 Union and Confederate troops fought there and 50,000 of them were casualties. It was the bloodiest and largest of the Civil War. It started on July 1, 1863 and ended on July 3.
Many historians claim the battle was a pivotal part of the war, not just because of its size and scope but also since President Abraham Lincoln four months later delivered his famous “Gettysburg Address” there at the dedication of a national cemetery.
“The idea of a gambling casino on or even near (the battleground) is totally incompatible with the nature of that historic site, which is special and unique,” McPherson said.
“A casino can be put anywhere, but there’s only one Gettysburg,” he added, a message echoed in the letter that he and 271 other historians signed.
Historians signing the protest letter include Garry Wills, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America”; Carol Reardon, who directs Pennsylvania State University’s graduate studies in history; and Edwin C. Bearss, chief historian emeritus of the National Park Service.
If granted a state license, Mason-Dixon Resorts & Casino will be at the existing Eisenhower Hotel & Conference Center in Cumberland Township.
The casino would be a half-mile from the 6,000-acre Gettysburg National Military Park, five miles from the borough of Gettysburg’s center and three miles north of the Mason-Dixon line. The application asks for a gambling parlor with up to 600 slots.
Though the casino would not be placed within Gettysburg National Military Park, the letter contends that putting a casino “so close to the Battlefield at Gettysburg is simply incomprehensible.” The proposed site would be next to where Union cavalry advanced toward the South Cavalry Field, which saw substantial fighting on July 3, according to the Civil War Preservation Trust.
The letter alludes to a similar debate in 2005, when David LeVan, a Gettysburg businessman and a developer of the current proposed casino, applied for a 5,000-slot casino a few miles northeast of Gettysburg’s town center
The state did not grant that casino a license at the end of 2006, largely because of widespread public opposition. Historians expressed similar opposition over the last application in a debate that lasted 20 months.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board hopes to reach a decision by the end of the year, but it first needs to have public meetings — where people can voice concerns and approval — for the proposed casino’s application and the three others that have filed for the same license.
So far, though, this proposed casino has gotten support in the region, said David La Torre, spokesman for the proposed casino. The Gettysburg-Adams Chamber of Commerce has expressed support for the casino, and the Cumberland Township Board of Supervisors did the same in April.
Pro-Casino Adams County has backed the proposed casino, claiming that the area has suffered job losses and could benefit from the gambling parlor’s 900 jobs. And 62 percent of those in Adams County support the proposal, according to a study conducted by Franklin and Marshall College that polled 600 county residents.
But others claim that the casino would have a negative impact on the area, namely in pushing away heritage tourists, who are different from typical tourists because “they travel for meaning,” said No Casino Gettysburg spokeswoman Susan Star Paddock.
“Those tourists have told us in droves that they are offended (by) the casino,” she said. “I don’t believe that anyone in this country outside of these investors and their cheerleaders would be OK with a casino at Ground Zero or at Arlington Cemetery or the site of Pearl Harbor.”
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