GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- When she heard the news in late April, Susan Star Paddock, of Gettysburg, was stunned, saddened and angered.

A development group called Chance Enterprises had unveiled plans to build a glitzy gambling palace and health spa outside town on Route 30, a growing commercial corridor not far from the historic battlefields and cemetery of Gettysburg National Military Park.

		Map: Proposed Gettysburg gaming resort and spa

The site, now grass and trees, is something Paddock and others, along with many historians, academics and Civil War buffs across the country, consider sacred.

The casino proposed for Gettysburg is one of a number of pitched battles being fought between developers and preservationists over Civil War sites heavy with history -- Manassas, Vicksburg, and Kennesaw Mountain among them -- that are under increasing pressure from adjacent housing, retail and entertainment projects.

The Gettysburg proposal drew swift and vocal response.

"My reaction was one of horror," Paddock, who's now a leader of a month-old activist group called No Casino Gettysburg, said last week.

The casino plan is "a desecration, a terrible exploitation, an attack on the history of the community that I love so deeply," she said. "Everybody has a bad idea at least once in their life and this is David's."

She was referring to David LeVan, a former president of Conrail and now owner of Battlefield Harley Davidson, a local motorcycle dealership, and the leader of the 10-member local development group.

Paddock has an ally in Muriel Rice, 83, a former Gettysburg borough councilwoman, school board member and ex-president of the Adams County Historical Society.

"I thought I had retired from community activity, but when I heard about this, I decided to do everything I can to see there is no casino in Gettysburg," said Rice, who's lived here since 1945. "The whole atmosphere of the town will be harmed by it. Many people have told us they won't bring their families here if there is a casino."

'To honor and protect'

In Gettysburg, preservationists are getting help from national groups, such as the Civil War Preservation Trust and Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg.

"We're here to honor and protect Gettysburg, and that includes the perception people have of this special place," said David Booz, of the Friends, which was founded in 1989 and claims 25,000 members nationwide.

The casino plan has created the biggest uproar in Gettysburg since a 393-foot steel observation tower was built on private land just outside the national park in 1974.

After nearly three decades of protests by preservationists who said the tower desecrated hallowed ground, the structure was imploded July 3, 2000, the 137th anniversary of Confederate Gen. George Pickett's famous but unsuccessful charge during the three-day battle.

The idea of building a mega-gambling center so near the spot where thousands of men died and President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address obviously touches a lot of people deeply.

Opinions vary widely, and not all are negative. Some advocates think a casino would provide jobs and increase tourism -- now nearly 2 million a year -- by giving people more to do at night.

Promoters maintain it will help fill local hotels, shops and eateries, even though the casino will have its own hotel and restaurant.

LeVan insists that many local residents like the idea of a casino or, at least, are willing to consider it. He said much of the opposition was based on emotion rather than "logic or reason."

"Many of our opponents don't care to understand the project and would be opposed no matter what we said," LeVan said.

State Rep. Stephen Maitland, R-Adams, who initially was undecided on the casino, said, "I decided to stop keeping score on public opinion when the calls to my office reached 250 'nos' and only 20 'yeses.' "

That response was in line with surveys he did last year before Act 71, the law legalizing 14 casinos around the state, was approved by the Legislature. "My constituents were opposed to casinos by a 3 to 1 margin," he said.

LeVan said he had a phone survey of 600 local residents done by the Pittsburgh consulting firm of Brabender Cox, which, he said, showed considerable support for the proposed $200 million Gettysburg Gaming Resort and Spa. The project includes a hotel, some restaurants and small shops.

Gettysburg: No position

Some local officials, noting the depth of feeling on the issue, are staying neutral. The Gettysburg Adams Chamber of Commerce hasn't taken a position

Gettysburg Borough Council isn't likely to do so either, council President Ted Streeter said. The casino site isn't within the boundaries of Gettysburg, but instead sits near the intersection of Routes 30 and 15, in tiny Straban, which doesn't have its own police force and depends on state police for protection.

Streeter said of the housing/retail development and traffic congestion that opponents fear a casino would bring: "That's happening anyway."

Streeter, who said he was neutral on the casino, added that many farmers and apple growers in the agricultural land around Gettysburg were "selling out to developers," and that many houses were springing up on land that had been used to grow crops. Adams County is among the fastest growing counties in Pennsylvania, with many people moving up from Maryland, he said.

"With the houses will come retail businesses and stores like Wal-Mart," Streeter said. Blocking a casino "is not going to stop growth in Adams County."

While both sides are making a plea for public support, nothing is expected to happen for a while. The new Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is creating procedures and criteria for evaluating operators' bids for running casinos.

The Gettysburg gambling operation is classified under Act 71 as a Category 2 casino, a stand-alone casino, meaning one that isn't connected to a horse racetrack.

Act 71, which Gov. Ed Rendell signed into law in July, allows for seven "racinos," as the track/casinos are called, along with five stand-alone casinos.

Two of the stand-alone casinos must be within Philadelphia city limits, and a third must be in Pittsburgh. That leaves two other stand-alone casinos to be built elsewhere in Pennsylvania. Some developers in the Poconos or the Bethlehem-Allentown areas of Eastern Pennsylvania also are angling for a stand-alone casino license.

But decisions by the gambling board on licenses for racinos aren't due to be made until late this year or early in 2006, with licenses for stand-alone casinos not expected until mid-2006.

Both sides in the new battle of Gettysburg will get a chance to make their case to the gambling board before it issues a license. Act 71 does not, however, give local zoning or planning boards any power over where the casinos will go or whether they will be permitted in a town at all.

Over the coming months, LeVan said, "We will provide opportunities for people to fully understand what we plan to do. Some of the opponents might be persuaded if they understood it."

Tough sell

The fight over the proposed Gettysburg casino is the latest in a series of battles for historians, preservationists and citizens groups that seek to protect Civil War turf from all kinds of intrusions.

The most publicized fight came in the mid-1990s, when Walt Disney officials proposed Disney America, a $650 million housing/retail/hotel/water park that was to go in Manassas in northern Virginia, about 30 miles west of Washington, D.C.

Manassas was the site of two Confederate victories -- the first and second battles of Manassas, which were fought in 1861 and 1862.

It took a couple of years, but foes like the Civil War Preservation Trust finally stopped the Disney project. They were aided by a series of influential Washington, D.C., insiders who joined in the effort to block the project.

The areas around two other famous Civil War battlefields in Virginia, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, also are growing at an alarming pace, University of Virginia history professor Gary Gallagher said.

"There is enormous pressure [for development]," he said. "People are living [south of Washington] and commuting to D.C. There's housing and businesses and ancillary development such as strip malls."

Gallagher came to Gettysburg two weeks ago to celebrate the groundbreaking for a $95 million visitors center and Civil War museum, but he said he opposed the proposed casino.

Two other areas made famous in the Civil War -- Vicksburg, Miss., and Kennesaw Mountain, Ga. -- also are facing development that is crowding up next to historic areas, Campi said.

Mississippi legalized riverboat casinos about 10 years ago, and several are docked in the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, where a famous battle was won by Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1863.

"The riverboat casinos have turned Vicksburg into one of the saddest looking places I've seen," Gallagher said.

Pittsburgh consultant John Brabender, who's working for LeVan, disputed that assessment, saying the boats had brought in a lot of tourists to the Mississippi town and helped its economy.

Kennesaw Mountain near Atlanta "is an island of green surrounded by a sea of urban sprawl. It's the worst example of what can happen to a battlefield," said Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust.

He said the Civil War Preservation Trust was trying to be proactive in the case of Gettysburg and stop casino-generated sprawl before it starts.

The proposed casino/spa would be built three miles east of the historic downtown center of Gettysburg. The area on Route 30 is a growing hodgepodge of retail/restaurant development, and the casino site is directly across the road from new commercial office buildings.

But construction around the historic Gettysburg battlefields has long been touchy.

The old steel observation tower, built in 1974, gave tourists good views of the battlefield, but received strong protests from Civil War groups.

Barbara Finfrock, of the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg, had called it an eyesore and an "intrusion where these men fought and died and bled."

The federal government took possession of the private land where the tower was stood, paid the owners $3 million and hired a firm to implode it.

Demolishing the tower was part of an effort to restore the battlefield to how it looked in 1863.

That effort will continue over the next two years as the current visitors center and the nearby cyclorama building are replaced by a new museum and visitors center.