For Gettysburg National Park and Battlefield, one of the premier civil war battlefields in the country, one which has struggled long and mightily to improve itself, and to entice tourists to its hallowed ground, the news is discouraging and confusing. The new fee for walking into the Visitor Center and seeing the movie and Cyclorama mural is now $10.50 per head. Explanations vary from “we’ve had more people than we had expected” to “people are staying longer than we anticipated.” So now an increased fee is to make people race into the facility and race through it so they can get even less time and history for their money??
Gettysburg has long had its troubles with management, overpaid heads and a diminishing staff, plain-jane food at bistro prices, and a general impression of “couldn’t care less” whether tourists came or not. By raising the visitor fee in a time when the economy tanks, the government takes over GM and people have less disposable income to even make “staycations” as they are called affordable, it is a stupid step by people who SHOULD have known better.
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One could almost posit that it is rather disrespectful for the thousands of men killed there, when the almighty dollar takes precedence over everything else.
Wake up Gettysburg folks — you are not seeing the forest for the trees.
