When was the Bloody Lane Observation Tower built?

A lot of people are curious about when the observation tower was built in the Bloody Lane. O.T. Reilly comes to the rescue and tells us that it was in 1895. Many people have referred to the NPS Administrative History that has a report in it from 1896 that says, basically, that they just finished the tower. But these newspaper items bring us a more precise chronology of the structure's beginnings.


O.T. Reilly wrote Sharpsburg Items in the local newspapers from 1887 until 1942, just two years before his death. I am systematically transcribing these thousands of gems because they represent the best documentation of any battlefield's memorialization period that, bar none. Not even John Bachelder left such a legacy in Gettysburg.