United States v. Gettysburg Electric Railway Co.

United States v. Gettysburg Electric Ry . Co., 160 U.S. 668 (1896), was a case to prevent trolley operations on the Gettysburg Battlefield . The dispute began in August 1891 when the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association 's board approved attorney Samuel Swope's motion to deny trolley right-of-way along GBMA roads. Despite the 1896 US Supreme Court ruling that the railway could be seized for historic preservation , as well as earlier legislative efforts to appropriate federal acquisition funds, create a War Department commission, and form the Gettysburg National Military Park ; the trolley continued operations until obsolete in 1916.

Contents

• 1 Background

  • 1.1 Gettysburg Park Commission

• 2 Federal case

• 3 Aftermath

  • 3.1 First Army Appropriations Act of 1917

• 4 References

• 5 External links

Background

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Near the end of the 19th century, tourists to the 1863 Gettysburg Battlefield typically arrived at the borough by train and paid fees for horse-drawn jitney taxis to travel over the battlefield on primitive wagon roads of the private Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association . The GBMA owned less than 600 acres (240 ha) of the battlefield's much larger area, and nearly all military engagement areas were privately owned and had twelve small GBMA-owned monument plots of 25 ft × 25 ft (7.6 m × 7.6 m). Some owners rented land for camping, sold souvenirs/refreshments, and by 1894 required top dollar prices for real estate purchases.

: '93  Similarly, the original battlefield roads had fallen into disrepair after the GBMA funds had become nearly exhausted by late 1882. : 4  Despite the preceding 1884 Round Top Branch steamtrain railroad that operated across the field of Pickett's Charge and Hancock Avenue to Round Top Station , an 1892 meeting next-door at the Round Top School formed an opposition committee of Cumberland Township voters (William H. Tipton was the only attendee favoring the trolley, and the township subsequently granted road right-of-way.)

Gettysburg Park Commission

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_v._Gettysburg_Electric_Railway_Co.&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Gettysburg Park Commission")

The Gettysburg Park Commission (GPC) was established by the United States Department of War on March 3, 1893, for "ascertaining the extent of...the trolley" (trolley track construction began April 1893). : '93  The Appropriations Act of 1893 on March 3 had funded $25,000, a June 9 supplemental act directed "acquisition and designation by tablets of the lines of battle", and the battlefield survey "was at once commenced" after topographer Emmor Cope was selected at the first commission meeting on July 1. : '93  Federal acquisition of land that would become the 1895 Gettysburg National Military Park began on June 2, 1893, with a tract of 0.387 acres (0.157 ha) from John H. Miller & wife. : 315  By July 1893, GPC commissioner John B. Bachelder reported to the Secretary of War about battlefield railbed construction (notably planned along the west of The Angle 's historic stone wall), and acting secretary Lewis A. Grant referred the complaint to the acting Judge Advocate General . [_who?
_]

Trolley right-of-way over the private 900 sq ft (84 m2) 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument tract at The Angle was denied by June 13, 1893;

and the route was changed to instead use the Emmitsburg Road . During the July 2–3, 1893, New York Monuments Commission visit for dedicating the 44th New York monument with observation deck on Little Round Top , two altercations against photographer Tipton resulted in a writ by local judge McClean against General Daniel Sickles , General Daniel Butterfield , and two civil war colonels. The writ was followed by an August 2, 1893, trolley complaint to the commonwealth by the GBMA, Edward McPherson , and thirty-nine other citizens; and a counter petition by 268 Gettysburg and 58 Cumberland township citizens favoring the trolley. The PA Attorney General denied action after the subsequent hearing: "the right of owners of private property—whatever public interest may attach to it—to dispose of it to passenger railway corporations, cannot be disputed. ...the line itself...has been chosen with a view of affording tourists the best possible means of visiting and viewing this great battlefield and doing the least possible injury to its natural conditions".

Despite a lack of funds that halted construction in August 1893, the railway began operations as early as September 1893 and was completed to Tipton Park and [Round Top Pa

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