The Gettysburg Hotel - Gettysburg, PA
Posted by: saopaulo1
N 39° 49.872 W 077° 13.853
18S E 309095 N 4411403
Historic hotel in downtown Gettysburg.
Waymark Code: WM6FAH
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 05/25/2009
Views: 22
"In 1797, James Scott built Scott’s Tavern on what is now Lincoln Square, Gettysburg’s historic town center. A former York County sheriff, William McClellan, acquired the tavern in 1809 and renamed it the Indian Queen. After 1846 it was called the McClellan House for its owners, the McClellan brothers.
During the summer of 1863, the building witnessed one of the central events in American history as Union and Confederate troops swarmed over the small town of Gettysburg during a pivotal and bloody three-day battle. Across from the hotel’s doors, at the Wills House, President Abraham Lincoln completed the stirring Gettysburg Address.
In the 1890s, a new owner replaced the old structure with an imposing building that he christened the Hotel Gettysburg, and so it remained through most of the 20th century. By the early 1900s, the hotel boasted electric lights, steam heat, hot and cold baths and a fine restaurant.
The hotel became part of a temporary White House in 1955 while President Eisenhower recovered from a heart attack at Gettysburg. In 1964, Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, were the Hotel Gettysburg’s last guests before the owner closed its doors. The building, a victim of changes in postwar America’s traveling habits, stood empty until a fire ravaged it in 1983. Through the initiative of Gettysburg College, the hotel was carefully restored in cooperation with the Historic Architectural Review Board. Opened in 1991 as the Best Western Gettysburg Hotel, the grand new building faithfully recaptures its historic past." (
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