A reminder of Mount Gretna’s role as the home for a National Guard encampment for five decades beginning in the late 1800s is enshrined in a yellow, two-story structure adjacent to the Pennsylvania National Guard Military Museum at Fort Indiantown Gap.
The Victorian Range House was built around 1890, about five years after the first National Guard encampment was held in southern Lebanon County. Today, the restored building is a reminder of Mount Gretna’s role as a training site for the military for over 50 years.
An historic marker outside the home states “originally erected in Mount Gretna about 1890, this Range House provided marksmanship trainers, military leaders, and observers a bird’s-eye view of Pennsylvania National Guard marksmen honing their skills. From its lofty vantage point, it was used primarily to observe targets, provide command and control, and enhanced communication between ranges.”
“The purpose was to store targets and things like that equipment for the firing ranges,” said Stephanie Olsen, director of the Pennsylvania National Guard Military Museum. “But it was also for the officers to stand in so that they could look out and watch the soldiers firing to see how they were doing.”
In his book, “Back at the Gap: The History of Fort Indiantown Gap,” Major General Frank H. Smoker Jr. writes that the range house was used to “train marksmen from Pennsylvania and other states for every war since the war with Spain, with the exception of the war in Southeast Asia (Vietnam).”
The house has two rooms on each floor and two balconies on the second level, which was used by observers to monitor those marksmen who were using the range to hone their shooting skills. Today, old photos highlighting activities at the military reservation in Mount Gretna decorate its walls like family photos in a civilian home.
It consists of wood and was on a stone foundation without a basement, Smoker writes. “It is believed that when the structure was relocated here from Mt. Gretna that a new door was cut on the north side and the east side was covered up.”
Olsen noted that the house was never used as quarters for military personnel even though it resembles a residence.
Mount Gretna became a training site for the national guard in 1885 when 120 acres were ordered to be cleared by landowner Robert Coleman at his own expense for a summer encampment area for the training of the 28th Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Coleman also offered the state a rifle range at Mount Gretna for infantry and artillery practice. An open area of the camp, which is still known as Soldier’s Field, is where inspections, parades and reviews for dignitaries were held daily.
Coleman’s generosity didn’t end there.
“In June 1885, Mr. Coleman built a reservoir by forming a dam across the Conewago Creek, thus creating a small lake about one-quarter mile west of the camp, and extended water pipes throughout the area. Expansion of the encampment continued through 1887,” Smoker writes.
By mid-July 1887, workers were prepping the land for the arrival of 9,000 troops, up from 3,000 for the first encampment two years earlier.
In those early years, the military training site, known as Pennsylvania Military Reservation, was quite popular, according to Smoker’s book. Pennsylvania Gov. James A. Beaver visited during the 1887 encampment as did another dignitary.
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“General Phil Sheridan of Civil War fame reviewed the Pennsylvania Division. His popularity resulted in over 25,000 visitors being present,” and “in 1889, the camp was named for General Sheridan.”
One year later, the highlight of that encampment was “a visit on July 24 of President Benjamin Harrison, the only president ever to visit Mt. Gretna,” according to Smoker’s book, published in August 2009.
Olsen noted the key role the training facility had for the military in the Keystone State.
“It was the largest training area in the state. They did go there for the summer encampments and they would do most of their training there,” said Olsen.
That importance was magnified during mobilization for the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Smoker writes that “following the national call to arms for the Spanish-American War, the camp at Mt. Gretna was opened on April 29, 1898 to prepare for mustering the troops in the Pennsylvania National Guard. Enrollment of volunteers for federal service occurred 3 to 5 May, and it was reported that over 90 percent, or 7,739 Guardsmen, had volunteered.”
Following the war, the guard continued to grow in the Gretna area. While there were only 15 buildings on the reservation before 1906, that number grew exponentially in the coming years.
By 1930, writes Smoker, “there were over 307 buildings consisting of 29 dwellings, 45 bath houses, 12 administration buildings, one canteen, one range house, 68 latrines, 85 enlisted men’s mess halls and kitchen, nine officer mess halls and kitchen, one observation platform, one carpenters shop, one blacksmith shop, six storehouses, 27 animal shelters, one grain elevator, one ice house, three target houses, one ordnance storehouse just west of the lake, four pump houses, and one telegraph office.”
As the military and Mount Gretna’s population both grew, a state military commission was convened for the purpose of determining whether it was feasible for Pennsylvania officials to improve Mount Gretna or if new lands should be purchased and used as a new state military reservation.
Smoker writes that via a special act of the state legislature, lawmakers appropriated $300,000 “for the purchase or condemnation of additional lands to be used for or in connection with the State Military Reservation at Mt. Gretna.”
That same legislation noted that if the study determined it was not advantageous to the state to make improvements at the current reservation, it should recommend another site.
On Dec. 4, 1930, the fate of Mount Gretna as the home to the National Guard was sealed with a vote of the commission.
Smoker writes that it was “the sense of the Commission that it would be inadvisable to make further extensive developments at Mt. Gretna, due to the proximity of the civil population and the danger to the life of that population when troop maneuvers were being held.” The unanimous vote included the provision that the state purchase enough land to relocate the camp to that location in the future.
“They started to outgrow that space,” said Olsen, “and it was becoming dangerous for residents and other people nearby. They realized that they needed a larger space to do these trainings and especially as military technology advanced as well. As we were able to develop technology to fire further, you needed additional space for a safety buffer so that you wouldn’t accidentally injure anyone.”
The Mount Gretna space continued to be utilized by the military throughout the 1930s.
Smoker notes in his book that “troops using the reservation in 1935 consisted of the entire 28th Division and the US Army 3rd Corps. This was the first year that 5,000 troops from nine units of the 3rd Corps of the US Army used the reservation. In addition, the 29th Division consisting of troops from Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania occupied Mt. Gretna reservation and held joint training with the troops at the Gap.”
While Fort Indiantown Gap’s artillery range opened on July 12, 1933, Mount Gretna continued to be a joint training space given its proximity just 15 miles south of its sister installation to the north.
“Although annual maneuvers started at the Gap in 1933, the Mt. Gretna training site continued to be used until 1940,” writes Smoker. Between 1933 and 1938, 75,250 soldiers trained there, including a high of 27,289 in 1937. Those soldiers included regular army, navy, miscellaneous military personnel, Pennsylvania National Guard and representatives from other guard units.
Beginning in 1936, the military began to move numerous buildings from Mount Gretna to Fort Indiantown Gap.
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A valued commodity of the military, the Range House was one of about 300 to be moved to northern Lebanon County, with its move executed in 1938. While at the Gap the Range House became what Smoker wrote was “basically an office for marksmanship statistical compilation” and “to coordinate training on the ranges for over 30 years.”
As technology replaced the need for observers given the advent of electronic marksmanship scoring, the house fell into disrepair from disuse over the years.
Fortunately, realizing its historic nature, it was placed on the National Historic Register and a $90,000 grant was obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Community of Economic Development in 2004 to renovate it for its historic value.
That same year the range house was moved to Area 8 next to the base’s museum at Service and Wiley roads, where it had undergone renovations over the years as funding was secured. A new roof was built, renovations were done to the interior and the building was painted so that it closely resembles its originality.
The house stands today as a testament to the critical role Mount Gretna played in those early years of the Pennsylvania National Guard in Lebanon County.
“It’s definitely one of the earliest and as I pointed out it’s definitely the largest at that time,” said Olsen. “I know that a lot of other states came here to train and that was part of the reason that they (eventually) needed to expand to Fort Indiantown Gap.”
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