Tag: History & Heritage

All Hands-On Fun

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

History here isn’t just something you read on a plaque. It’s something you climb, touch, taste, explore, and play. Gettysburg and Adams County are packed with hands-on experiences that invite kids (and curious grown-ups) to step into the story, get a little messy, and make memories along the way. From orchards and museums to nature trails and living history, these adventures turn learning into action and curiosity into discovery.

Hands-On History & Museums

Interactive experiences where kids can step directly into the past.

Sit in the seat of a ... Read This Story

History for Kids

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

Family-Friendly Historic Getaways for America’s 250th

Within a few hours’ drive, families can turn a Gettysburg visit into a road trip filled with places where kids can walk, climb, imagine, and ask questions as highlights of American history come to life.

In Philadelphia, families can stroll the same streets as the Founding Fathers, explore interactive museums, and discover how big ideas were born in small rooms.

Washington, D.C.. invites kids to connect the dots between history and today through hands-on museums, open-air monuments, and wide green spaces ... Read This Story

Step Back in History: Gettysburg’s Historic Homes & House Tours

By Carl Whitehill

Gettysburg’s history extends far beyond the battlefield. Throughout town and across Adams County, historic homes, taverns, farms, and museums invite visitors to step inside the stories of civilians, soldiers, presidents, and families who shaped the American experience. From preserved Civil War homes to presidential estates and colonial taverns, these spaces bring history to life in deeply personal ways.

After exploring the battlefield and many museums scattered throughout Gettysburg and its countryside, take time to discover these historic homes where guides bring visitors face-to-face with the people who lived through defining moments in American ... Read This Story

History Meets Ingenuity

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

The Round Barn: Where Historic Ingenuity Meets Everyday Life

Rising from the fields outside Biglerville, the Historic Round Barn is one of Adams County’s most distinctive landmarks and one of its most inventive. Built in 1914, this striking structure was designed with efficiency in mind. Its circular shape allowed farmers to work smarter, not harder, with livestock stalls arranged around a central silo and a roof system engineered to support heavy loads without interior columns. At a time when agriculture was rapidly modernizing, the Round Barn stood at the ... Read This Story

Base Ball’s Early Days

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

Gettysburg National 19th Century Base Ball Festival

One July weekend every summer, Gettysburg comes to life with the crack of a wooden bat and the cheers of onlookers transported back to the 19th century.

It’s all due to the Annual Gettysburg National 19th Century Base Ball Festival, bringing together clubs from across the country who play the game as it was known during the Civil War, when it was spelled base ball, played barehanded, and governed by a very different set of rules.

Teams arrive in period ... Read This Story

Adams County Timeline

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide.

This timeline highlights moments in Gettysburg and Adams County history that shaped the broader American story. It focuses on dates with more national significance, events that connect the area to the ideas, conflicts, and turning points relevant to America’s 250th anniversary.

Indigenous Cultures & Early Settlement (600 BC–1700s)

The Woodland Period’s Indigenous peoples establish prehistoric toolmaking and trade across the mid-Atlantic region. In the Adams County area, transient hunter-gatherers include Nanticoke, Susquehannock, Shawnee and Delaware

1681  William Penn receives a charter from King Charles II of ... Read This Story

Greetings from Gettysburg

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

Then & Now

Long before social media and smartphone cameras, postcards were how travelers shared their experiences, with Gettysburg one of the most photographed destinations in America. In the early 1900s, visitors mailed hand-colored postcards home, offering loved ones a glimpse of battlefield landscapes, monuments, and quiet corners they couldn’t easily see for themselves.

The historic postcards featured in the 2026 Getaway Guide were produced by leading publishers of the era, including Rotograph Company of New York City (circa 1904) and Raphael Tuck & Sons (circa 1907). Known ... Read This Story

A Mural in the Making

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

Stories Rising at Beyond the Battle

Something big is taking shape in Gettysburg—literally. As Adams County marks America’s 250th anniversary, a new public art mural transforms the exterior wall of the Adams County Historical Society’s Beyond the Battle Museum into a powerful visual story of themed to address, “Who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed.”

The mural, titled “Adams County: Stories Past, Present, and Future,” is being created by artist Sarah Jacobs, whose work many locals already recognize from her striking murals at the Adams ... Read This Story

Highway of Heroes

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

Experience America’s Legacy, Right Here in Pennsylvania

Stretching more than 300 miles across the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania’s Highway of Heroes follows historic U.S. Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, America’s first transcontinental roadway. Traveling east to west from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, this meaningful route connects six nationally significant sites that together tell the story of courage, sacrifice, leadership, and freedom.

As the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, Pennsylvania’s role in shaping America comes sharply into focus. Along this single road, visitors can trace the country’s journey from independence and endurance ... Read This Story

Before The Battle

As seen in the 2026 Destination Gettysburg Getaway Guide

Gettysburg Colonial Roots

Gettysburg’s history reaches back well before the Civil War. Early Scots Irish settlers, frontier farms, and the turnpikes that carried travelers west helped shape this region long before armies arrived. Local militia culture and Pennsylvania’s role in the American Revolution left lasting marks on the landscape and its people. At the Gettysburg Museum of History, artifacts from the colonial era help connect these early stories to the events that later unfolded on the battlefield. Together, they show how Gettysburg grew from a colonial crossroads into a ... Read This Story

Geology of Gettysburg and Impact on the Battle

by: Mary Grace Kauffman

If you’ve traversed the rocky boulders at Devil’s Den, climbed Culp’s Hill or watched the sun set from Little Round Top, you’ve stood on geologic formations millions of years in the making.

The landscape of Gettysburg had a major influence on the Civil War battle that took place here July 1, 2 and 3, 1863, prompting scholars to study the battle from a geological perspective.

About 200 million years before the Battle of Gettysburg, tectonic plates shifted to create the Gettysburg Formation, made of sandstone, siltstone and shale, according to the ... Read This Story

Behind the Glass: How Artifacts are Prepared for Display in Gettysburg

There’s a small army working behind the scenes at Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center.

Up to a dozen people prepare each artifact for display in the 1,000-plus piece collection that tells the story of Gettysburg’s epic Civil War battle. A stroll through the exhibits takes visitors on a journey back to 1863.

Artifacts come to the museum through archaeological efforts and donations from the public, according to museum curator Greg Goodell. Several steps are required before a historic object makes it to the exhibit before the visitor’s eyes.

Artifact conservators conduct conservation treatments. Depending on the ... Read This Story