Gettysburg Heritage Center and Museum - A Learning Experience

The Gettysburg Heritage Center, Museum and Gift Shop is one of the area's largest & finest gift shops offering a wide array of collectibles, books, souvenirs and other items. It's located at 297 Steinwehr Avenue in Gettysburg Pennsylvania and is open year-round to visitors. It's free to shop at their gift shop, but if you want to tour the museum, you'll need to pay a small admission fee. During the weekend that we visited, they had an encampment going on out front and that was really cool to see people dressed up in clothing from the late 1880's. (photo below). You can visit their website to learn about the special events that they host throughout the year.

When visiting the museum, you'll want to allow at least 60-90 minutes in your schedule. On the day that we toured the museum it wasn't crowded and we leisurely took our time and was in & out in about 70 minutes. There is plenty of free parking at the Heritage Center and nearby you'll find other tourist attractions like the Lincoln Train Museum, the Gettysburg Diorama & History Center and Soldiers' National Cemetery. I recommend parking at the center and then walking to all of the nearby attractions.

Admission for adults age 18 & over is $8.95 per person, children ages 6 to 17 years of age is $6.95 per person and children under the age of 6 years are free with a paying adult. Before entering the museum itself, you'll want to visit the public restrooms in the gift shop as we didn't see any in the museum portion of the building.

The museum is really cool and some of it is in 3-D. They will lend you a pair of 3-D glasses after you pay your admission, so that you can see & watch some of the 3-D presentations along the way. This attraction focuses on giving you information about Gettysburg before the 3-day battle, during the battle and after the battle has concluded. You'll learn what life was like for the people who lived in Gettysburg by viewing little videos, looking at artifacts, reading historical documents, viewing the interactive displays and of course, those 3-D programs are really informative too!

As we walked around the museum we really took our time to read all of the information and to interact with the hands-on exhibits. It was a really fun experience and one of the best museums in Gettysburg that we had visited. If you're a civil war history buff, you'll want to take a little notebook with you to take notes or take a lot of photographs of what you see and write down your notes afterwards. There is a LOT of information & history to learn here.

One of the exhibits that I really enjoyed seeing was their exhibit of what it was like for the soldiers who got wounded during the civil war and how they got their medical care. Often times it was rendered right on the battlefield or in one of the make-shift hospitals that were set up in a civilian's home or a nearby church. Of course...back in the late 1880's, they didn't have the technology or medical advances that we have today, so many of these soldiers died. The photo above depicts a union soldier during a leg amputation. As a former healthcare professional, this part of the museum really interested me.

There was a section in the museum that housed a large old tree trunk and my husband really enjoyed checking that out. The tree used to be out on the battlefield and has since been removed. A part of that tree is in the museum and by counting the rings you can age the tree back to the civil war time period. You can see the tree trunk in the above photo and then on a nearby wall they have the inner slice of that trunk hung up and a plaque that explains how they dated the tree.

The museum really focuses on educating you about the town of Gettysburg, the people who lived there and their stories. It was really fascinating to learn more about some of these people and the trying times that they all had to go through. I really enjoyed seeing how people dressed back in the 1880's and how they lived. It's nothing like how we all live today in modern times.

The Gettysburg Heritage Center & Museum is a definite must-see and must-do when visiting Gettysburg! It's one of the nicest museums in the area and the admission price is very affordable. It's within walking distance of other area tourist attractions, so you can park there and spend the afternoon exploring the other attractions on Steinwehr Avenue.

Note: All photographs are copyright 2016 Pennsylvania & Beyond Travel Blog. Each photo is clickable. If you click the photo, it will open up in a new browsing window and in an enlarged size, so that you can view the smaller details up close.