Tourist Traps

I use the term "Tourist Traps" because that is what my parents would say whenever I expressed interest in a passing roadside attraction on our family vacations.   Gettysburg was loaded with roadside attractions designed to pull in vacationers but I saw none of them on the several occasions when we visited the town.   Of course by age 12 I simply looked wistfully as we passed by assorted wax museums and ventures whose main target audience was children.   Which probably accounts for my interest sixty years later.   That and the fact that most of these roadside attractions are no longer in operation. 

 We did visit certain attractions like the National Museum with the Electric Map which was deemed of educational merit and whose target audience was serious adults and not 12-year-olds like myself.   I believe that the family split up the day I saw the Electric Map,  my father and I going there and while my mother and younger brother went to the Jennie Wade House with an agreed upon time to meet back at the car.   We also saw the Cyclorama painting which was run by the park service and Lee's Headquarters which was free and operated by Larson's Motel where we were staying.    And I was allowed to climb the stairs to the top of the various observation platforms.  

Baltimore Street (business 15) leads south off the square and soon forks with Business 15 going off to the right as Steinwehr Ave.  while Baltimore Street  continues straight as the Baltimore Pike.   The "Y" of that intersection was the location of the memorably named hot dog stand - Jasper's Tube Steaks.   A few buildings later Steinwehr forks again with Taneytown Road (route134) going off to the left along the west border of the National Cemetery.    This group of roads have always hosted the town's traditional concentration of the tourist traps although a few can be found elsewhere.   I have subsections for each of the three streets if you click on the tourist traps arrow above.