Don't be put off by Antietam construction this summer — the Park Service has you covered

SHARPSBURG — Renovation work on the visitor's center at Antietam National Battlefield is "about 75% complete" and on pace to reopen sometime in the fall, according to Park Ranger Keith Snyder, the battlefield's chief of resource education and visitor services.

"But there are some supply issues that we've got to work through," he said. "There's a lot of great work going on, as you can see, but nothing is given these days on the supply side, especially. But they're making great progress."

In the meantime, visitors can still see the Civil War battlefield's film, purchase books and get information at a temporary visitor's center across the parking lot.

And visitors are still coming, unperturbed by the ongoing construction.

"People haven't stopped coming in the middle of this process," Snyder said, and the temporary center "is actually much nicer than what any of us thought it was gonna be."

The temporary building is roomy and allowed the battlefield staff to re-use several of the exhibit panels that were in the visitor's center before it was closed for renovations. They also moved the information desk and the bookstore into the temporary digs.

"When we first moved in, we were still at the higher COVID levels of transmission," Snyder said. "But when that calmed down a little bit, we actually opened up a temporary theater. It's a big-screen TV, but at least we can show the film.

"That made a lot of people happier, because a lot of people want to see the film."

But the main attraction is the battlefield itself, which is fully open. That includes roads and trails. And ranger talks are conducted daily, and weekend tours and monthly living history programs are ongoing.

What will some of the new Antietam exhibits look like?

When the new center opens, it will include "entirely new exhibits," Snyder said, beginning almost from the moment visitors hop out of their cars.

"That exhibit experience actually starts from the parking lot all the way in and through the building," he said. "That was one of our goals, was to create both an exterior and an interior experience."

What will that look like?

More wayside information signs. A sculpture on the lawn symbolizing the battle. An interpretive plaza with benches and more waysides.

And visitors can follow a timeline of the war before they even reach the inside of the visitor's center — it will be embedded into the sidewalk.

"Almost every visitor coming here, I'd say 80%, are either coming or going to Gettysburg or Harpers Ferry," Snyder said. "So people are doing the circuit; they're trying to get it in their heads … trying to get the sequence.

"One way we thought we would solve that creatively is a timeline in the sidewalk."

In addition to new exhibits, the center will be much more accessible for disabled visitors. Improvements include an elevator, new restrooms and sidewalks that aren't so steep.

"The new sidewalk is one reason we did this interpretive plaza because it's going to be kind of an 'S-curve,'" Snyder said, because the sidewalk was too steep.

The exhibit space also will have 12 interactive elements, he said, including a listening station.

"It was an opportunity for us to kind of rethink our story … particularly based on the most recent scholarship," he said. "Every generation has new information, and we do, too. This is the most appropriate place to try to tell some of the bigger story … for example, the cause of war; post-battle experience."

Snyder said the park's management decided early on to use the renovated visitor's center to tell those bigger stories.

"We primarily tell the battle story when you're out on the field," he said. But beyond those "tactical stories," visitors to the new center will learn more about the families who lived in Sharpsburg when the battle occurred and about the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln in the aftermath of the battle.

How were the new Antietam visitors center exhibits chosen?

In deciding how to tell these stories in the renovated center, the battlefield staff created an advisory team that included historians and rangers from other Civil War battlefields.

"We locked ourselves in a room to develop our themes and goals," he said, "and the big epiphany was, how do we organize it? There's a lot of ways to do it, and we were starting with a blank slate; here's our opportunity."

They settled on five "universal concepts" around which to tell the battle story: conflict, terror, survival, freedom and memory.

"Everyone has some kind of experience with those five universal concepts," Snyder said. "Maybe not to the level of a Civil War soldier, but everyone's had fear in their life, everyone has conflict in their life. Everyone hopefully has some kind of thought of what freedom is. And memory, that's what history is."

The purpose of the building, he said, is to be a springboard to the battlefield itself.

The visitor's center was originally built in 1962, at the time of the battle's centennial. This year marks the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, which occurred on Sept. 17, 1862.

The building had a lot of problems, Snyder said, but the improvements will bring it "into the 21st century."

For now, the temporary center is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The grounds are open during daylight hours.

For more information, virtual tours and a schedule of upcoming events, visit the website at www.nps.gov/anti/index.htm.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Renovated Antietam visitor's center set to reopen this fall