The stone observatory on the Bloody lane is now finished and ready for visitors. The view from this point alone is worth a visit to the famous Bloody lane as you can take in the entire right to the left nearly four miles. There will be, when all planted, nearly four hundred markers, giving one a good idea of the entire battle field with the advantage of the good roads. Every body ought to visit it and make a study of this great battle.
When was the Bloody Lane Observation Tower built?
Submitted by StephenRecker on Sat, 05/02/2015 - 11:17am
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.
About
Hello. I'm Stephen Recker and welcome to my blog. In it I will be discussing the different projects I am working on related to the American Civil War with a focus on photography related to the battle of Antietam. I am particularly interested in how the battlefield has been interpreted throughout the years. I will be discussing how it was done then and how new technologies can be brought to bear to bring life to those old materials as well as new ones. See the 99 Places Every Antietam Battlefield Guide Should Know.
Sharpsburg Items
Antietam Valley Record
Thursday, September 5, 1895