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Battle Looms over Gettysburg Casino Plan

The proposed site of the Gettysburg Gaming Resort and Spa  is less than a mile from East Cavalry Battlefield.
Geoffrey Gaudreault, NPR
The proposed site of the Gettysburg Gaming Resort and Spa is less than a mile from East Cavalry Battlefield.
Dean Shultz, amateur historian and preservationist, is upset that developers plan a casino so close to East Cavalry Battlefield. His family settled in Gettysburg in 1847.
Eric Niiler, NPR /
Dean Shultz, amateur historian and preservationist, is upset that developers plan a casino so close to East Cavalry Battlefield. His family settled in Gettysburg in 1847.

Developers want to build a casino just outside of a Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. But many local residents and Civil War buffs say their town and nearby battlefield is the wrong place for gambling.

Developers want to build the 3,000-slot-machine Gettysburg Gaming Resort and Spa less than a mile away from East Cavalry Battlefield, where Confederate Gen. Jeb Stuart was defeated by George Custer, then a young Union officer, in 1863.

Backers of the project, who include a local business owner and six other investors, say it will create 800 new fulltime jobs and pump millions of dollars into the local economy. But critics say the project threatens to bring traffic problems and could bring problems like prostitution and crime to the region.

Preservationists already call U.S. Route 15, which runs from Gettysburg, Penn., to Monticello, Va., one of the most threatened historic roads in the country.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eric Niiler
Eric Niiler reports for NPR's national desk. His work can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and other NPR newsmagazines. Before moving to his current post, Niiler was a reporter for NPR's Day to Day program, and also filed pieces for NPR's national and science desks.