Gettysburg Airport

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The Gettysburg Airport (Forney Airfield in World War II) was a Gettysburg Battlefield facility northwest of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the west slope of Oak Ridge off of the Mummasburg Road.

History

The Gettysburg Flying Service operated airplane tours of the battlefield from the west slope of Oak Ridge in the 1920s (cf. the Battlefield Airways at the Battlefield Airport across from The Peach Orchard), and the field was a 1939 site on the initial transcontinental airmail line. [1] In 1937, TBD Bircher took over the Boulevard airport in southeast Pennsylvania ("William Penn airport" when opened in 1917, closed 1951), [2] but his World War II flight training school was "forced to move from Philadelphia because of wartime restrictions on flying." [3] Bircher bought the W. A. Kelly farm near Gettysburg, [4] for the Gettysburg Flying Service and in 1942 the new airport was built along the Mummasburg Road (2 runways of 1/2 mile and 1900 feet) after being granted a Civilian Aeronautics Administration license. [5] Lighting was added to the 1895 Oak Ridge Observation Tower, and the airport's World War II Civilian Pilot Training program included Temple University students from the battlefield's Lee-Meade Inn.

In January 1944, Bircher was the owner-operator of the Gettysburg School of Aeronautics and was notified to close the school circa July 1 [6] (1944 appropriations were for a different airport.) [7] In 1947, farm chicks survived an airplane crash at the airport but died in a subsequent hangar fire [8] [9] [10] while in the 1950s, President Eisenhower used the airport to travel between The White House [ clarification needed ] and his Gettysburg farm. [11] In 1969 to compete against the Doersom Airport on the Lincoln Highway, the Mummasburg Road facility became the "Gettysburg Airport" [12] of Sheen, Louser, & Roth; [13] but was converted to a turf farm in 1981. [14]

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Round Top Branch


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Barlow, Pennsylvania is a populated place between the Gettysburg Battlefield and the Mason–Dixon line at the intersection of Rock Creek and Pennsylvania Route 134. North of the creek on the road summit is the principal facility of the rural community: the 1939 community hall at the Barlow Volunteer Fire Company fire station. The hall is a Cumberland Township polling place and was used by Mamie & Dwight D. Eisenhower after purchasing their nearby farm. Horner's Mill was the site of an 1861 Union Civil War encampment, and the covered bridge was used by the II Corps and General George G. Meade en route to the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.

McPherson Ridge

McPherson Ridge is a landform used for military engagements during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, when the I Corps of the Union Army had a headquarters on the ridge and was defeated by the Confederate division of Major General Henry Heth. The ridge has terrain above ~530 ft (160 m) and is almost entirely a federally protected area except for township portions at the southern end and along Pennsylvania Route 116, including a PennDOT facility. The northern end is a slight topographic saddle point on the west edge of Oak Ridge, and summit areas above 560 ft (170 m) include 4 on/near the Lincoln Highway, a broader summit south of the Fairfield Road, and the larger plateau at the northern saddle.

The Battlefield Airport was the Gettysburg Battlefield site of the Battlefield Airways, Inc. west of the Peach Orchard between the Emmitsburg road and Warfield Ridge. The corporation and airfield were operated in the 1920s by Herbert J. Fahy, an aeronautical record holder and former Air Service pilot who subsequently was a Lockheed test pilot. His wife, Clair May Fahy, also operated from the airfield and flew a Travel Air with Curtiss OX-5 in the 1929 Women's Air Derby. The airport was denied a 1928 state Public Service Commission charter to fly sightseers over the battlefield because it would compete with the Gettysburg Flying Service, where a new airport was built in 1942 and re-established in 1969.

The Lee-Meade Inn was a World War II army site on the Gettysburg Battlefield in the area of Hood's Assault. The facility was south of Rose Run on the "light grade" north of the South Confederate Avenue crest. The Inn had 37 ft (11 m) of frontage on the Emmitsburg Road, cabins in the rear, and an adjacent service station.

Rose Woods

Rose Woods is a Gettysburg Battlefield forested area that is an American Civil War site of the battle's Hood's Assault, McLaws' Assault, and McCandless' Advance. "Scene of the first line of Union defenses" on the Battle of Gettysburg, Second Day; the 1st Texas Infantry and 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiments attacked Ward's 2nd Brigade line in the woods. The last combat on the Battle of Gettysburg, Third Day, was "in the early evening. Colonel William McCandless's brigade of Pennsylvania Reserves advanced across the Wheatfield into Rose's Woods where they managed to inflict heavy losses on the 15th Georgia" which had failed to retreat to Warfield Ridge after Longstreet's Assault. Two days later Timothy H. O'Sullivan photographed corpses moved for burial to the edge of Rose Woods and which were subsequently reinterred in cemeteries.

Oak Ridge Seminary School in Pennsylvania, United States

The Oak Ridge Seminary was an antebellum school for "young ladies" west of the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. One of 2 girls schools used as an American Civil War hospital for Battle of Gettysburg casualties, the female seminary had also been used as a prison, and General Lee's "Headquarters and tents [were] pitched in the space adjoining Oak Ridge Seminary"

References

  1. "Mail Pick-Up by Plane to Start Here on May 14". Gettysburg Compiler. April 8, 1939 via news.google.com.
  2. "Asks Cleanup For All Brass Markers Here". The Star and Sentinel. September 29, 1951 via news.google.com.
  3. "Bircher Says Town To Gain From Air Course". The Star and Sentinel. March 27, 1943. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  4. "Buys Farm For Flying School". The Star and Sentinel. May 2, 1942. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  5. "Airport To Open Sunday". Gettysburg Compiler. July 11, 1942 via news.google.com.
  6. "Sixteen Instructors At Gettysburg School OF Aeronautic Affected". Gettysburg Times. January 31, 1944. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  7. "Pays Second Fine On School Charge". Gettysburg Times. December 1, 1944 via news.google.com.
  8. "Catastrophe at Airport". Gettysburg Times. March 8, 1947. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  9. "Staub Claims Airport Knew Chicks Flight". Gettysburg Times. March 5, 1947 via news.google.com.
  10. "Cargo Plane Turns Over On Takeoff Here". The Star and Sentinel. March 15, 1947. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  11. "Fairfield Amvets Set Shooting Match". Gettysburg Times. November 14, 1955. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  12. "Sheen Speaks". Gettysburg Times. December 28, 1971 via news.google.com.
  13. "New Owners Will Expand Airport Here". Gettysburg Times. November 7, 1969. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.
  14. "Gettysburg Airport Land Sold; Will Be A Turf Farm". Gettysburg Times. July 30, 1981. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013 via news.google.com.

Coordinates: 39°50′40″N77°16′10″W / 39.84452°N 77.26933°W / 39.84452; -77.26933