GETTYSBURG -- Bill Caraway, who works in the hotel business in Pittsburgh and lives in the city's Oakwood neighborhood, hadn't visited this famous Civil War battlefield since he was 8 years old, about 30 years ago.

But he made a special trip here recently with 300 other volunteers employed in the tourism industry to start the cleanup of a little-known 80-acre farm, which has three buildings that were standing in July 1863, when bloody fighting took place between the armies of the North and the South.

A stately old stone farmhouse with a weathered tin roof stands near a battered wooden barn, which the decades have given a deep-brown hue, and a small stone "summer kitchen" with a big interior fireplace once used for cooking.

The buildings and land played a key role in the climactic three-day clash of Union and Confederate forces, but most visitors to Gettysburg National Military Park in Adams County have never laid eyes on them.

"This place is such a part of history, and it shaped our country as it is today," Mr. Caraway, who works in Cranberry, said during a break from clearing many years' worth of dead brush and debris from what is called the George Spangler Farm, after the family that owned it during the Civil War.

The parcel, bordered by two roads with quaint, 19th century names -- Granite Schoolhouse Lane and Blacksmith Shop Road -- is just down Baltimore Pike from the new Gettysburg Visitors Center, which opened last year.

The Spangler family farm was used as a makeshift field hospital by the 11th Corps of the Union forces. It's where 1,700 soldiers were treated during the battle and for more than a month afterward. The wounded filled two levels inside the barn, with others outside in tents and just lying in the grass.

Not all of the wounded were Union soldiers.

The farm's two-story stone kitchen was where a well-known Confederate general, Lewis Armistead, was taken after suffering a mortal wound in the famous charge led by Confederate Gen. George Pickett on the third and final day of battle. A metal plaque memorializing the death of Gen. Armistead is still attached to the side of the old kitchen.

The farm remained in private hands until last year, when the Gettysburg Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the National Park Service, bought it for $1.9 million.

"Many of the fields, buildings and boundary lines associated with the farm are still intact," said foundation President Robert C. Wilburn, who is the former president and CEO of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute.

"Purchase of this historic site is in keeping with our ongoing mission to enhance the preservation and understanding of Gettysburg's significance."

The foundation is now working with the park service to clear brush and debris from the land, restore the buildings and provide a new visitor attraction and a site for educational programming.

Renovations will take a while, though -- at least two years -- and will cost about $2 million, said foundation spokeswoman Dru Anne Neil.

The barn is still handsome, though the wood has turned a deep brown and some slats on the sides are missing. The main house and two-story "kitchen" still retain their attractive gray stone walls and tin roofs, but need repair.

"We want to make this a 'living history' site. We want visitors to see what it was like in 1863," said Dr. John Latschar, superintendent of the battlefield park.

While Civil War history sometimes is romanticized over the decades, he said, "Human pathos took place on this ground. We want visitors to understand the non-romantic things that happened here."

During the 145 years that passed between the Gettysburg battle and the foundation's purchase of the land, private owners "didn't do much to the property," Dr. Latschar said.

That's both good news and bad news, he said. The property remains historically accurate -- the good news -- but there's much restoration to be done.

The grounds will be restored to their 1860s appearance, both by removing trees that weren't there during the battle and by re-planting orchards that did exist then.

"[Visitors] will see what the generals saw when they organized their troops for battle and understand what the soldiers endured carrying out their orders," Mr. Latschar said.

Clearly, the town of Gettysburg and the surrounding battlefields and monuments are one of Pennsylvania's major tourist attractions. The 300 or so volunteer restorers who spent a day here work in the tourism industry around the country. Their visit was organized by a group called Tourism Cares, based in Boston.

In past years, the organization has spent time restoring George Washington's home in Mount Vernon, Va., repairing the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, fixing up Ellis Island in New York City and restoring above-ground historic tombs in a New Orleans cemetery. They decided something had to be done to maintain those sites when tourism declined after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Gettysburg battlefield is "one of a kind. It's a national treasure. That's why I'm here," said Dianna Borges, who has a horse-drawn carriage business in Lake Tahoe, Nev.

"This seemed like a perfect project for us," said Vicki Abel, who has a tourism agency in Murrysville. "I've been to Gettysburg many times but I didn't even know the Spangler farm existed."