City: Fayetteville, PA

Category: Golf

Telephone: (717) 352-7271

Address: 9515 Golf Course Road

Description: The first nine holes of this golf course were built in 1922 and the second nine were added in 1926, and this oldie is still a goody. It’s designed and constructed to put a premium on accuracy instead of distance, with plenty of trees and streams and narrow fairways to navigate over the par 68, 5,154-yard course. Located 12 miles west of Gettysburg behind the Totem Pole Playhouse in Caledonia State Park, club amenities include a clubhouse with a pro shop and snack bar, a putting green, and club rentals. (See the State Parks and Public Lands chapter for more activities offered in Caledonia State Park and The Arts chapter for more information on the Totem Pole Playhouse.) Although the Caledonia Golf Club is open to the public, memberships are also available. Caledonia is usually one of the last courses in the area to open in the spring because it has small streams that crisscross the fairways, and it takes awhile for the course to dry out from the winter snows. Many golfers consider the No. 9 hole to be the prettiest on the course, especially in the fall. It has about a 60-foot drop from the tee to the green and a stand of trees to the right and left of the green. The hole is a par 3 with a length of 169 yards. The club requests (but doesn’t require) that you make tee times daily up to 3:00 p.m., and they can be made up to six months in advance if you wish. Fees run $19 to walk and $34 to ride the course.

City: Fayetteville, PA

Category: Golf

Telephone: (717) 352-3000, (800) 221-7366

Address: 3720 Clubhouse Drive

Description: Penn National is considered by many area golfers to be the top golf facility in the area, but it is a bit of a drive (20 miles) from Gettysburg. It features two championship courses that are drastically different, each of which has earned a four-and-a-half-star rating by Golf Digest. Golfweek rated it the 10th best public course in Pennsylvania. This is also a golf-course community, with residential housing blending with the golf courses. The Penn National Inn, with 52 hotel rooms, is on the grounds, and it offers stay-and-play packages that include golf, lodging, and meals on-site. Amenities include a pro shop in the clubhouse, locker rooms with showers, a restaurant and snack bar, a lighted driving range, and a putting green. Clubs may be rented here, and lessons are available at Bumble Bee Hollow Golf Academy, which offers one-, two-, and three-day programs for new as well as advanced players. To get to Penn National, take Chambersburg Street west for about 18 miles to Route 997 South. Turn left onto Route 997 and follow it for 3.5 miles to the golf club, which is about 1 mile north of Mont Alto. Both courses require proper golf attire and are non-metal-spike facilities. Tee times are required and may be made up to 30 days in advance. The cost at either course is $79, with reduced afternoon rates and special weekday pricing for seniors.The Founders Course is a traditional 18-hole course with a classic blend of tree-lined bluegrass fairways, a seven-acre lake, and large, sculpted greens. Many of the fairways are lined with mature trees, so accuracy off the tee is a must, and the lake comes into play on four of the holes. This 6,492-yard, par 72 course was built in 1968 and designed by Edmund Ault. It has a $1.3 million double-row irrigation system that was completed in 2003, and its greenside bunkers were completely renovated in 2006.The Iron Forge Course is a modern course with an open-style layout with bent-grass fairways, fast bent-grass greens, and rolling elevation changes. Since it is so open, wind can dramatically factor into your game here. The par 72, 6,300-yard, 18-hole course was built in 1996 and designed by Bill Love. The signature hole is No. 15, a par 4 with yardage of 347. It’s a tough hole that involves steep hills, bunkers, and water, and it plays shorter than its yardage because the tee shot is downhill. A 40-foot drop from the tee to the green makes the vista from the tee just beautiful.

City: Fayetteville, PA

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (717) 352-2161

Address: 40 Rocky Mountain Road

Description: Located 15 miles west of Gettysburg, Caledonia is the closest state park to Gettysburg. It sits in Adams and Franklin Counties, 1,125 acres within Michaux State Forest in the northernmost section of the Blue Ridge Mountains known locally as South Mountain. South Mountain is mostly composed of a hard rock called quartzite, and the valleys on either side of the mountain are underlain with limestone and shale. This makes the soil ideal for fruit production, which is evidenced by the number of fruit farms in the area. Park visitors can enjoy a range of activities, including camping, fishing, hiking, swimming, hunting, and picnicking. The park is also home to Caledonia Golf Club, an 18-hole, par 68 public course, and the Totem Pole Playhouse, a summer-stock theater that’s operated here since the 1950s. (To learn more, see the Golf and The Arts chapters.) The park is named for Thaddeus Stevens’s charcoal iron furnace, which was named Caledonia (see the Close-up in this chapter for information on the charcoal industry in Pennsylvania). Thaddeus Stevens, originally from Caledonia County in Vermont, was a famous statesman and abolitionist who practiced law at Gettysburg. The furnace began operating in 1837, and the watercourse along Route 233 was once the millrace that operated the furnace waterwheel. In June 1863 Confederate cavalry under the command of General Early destroyed the furnace, and the pastures you see now were used as field hospitals for the wounded of the Battle of Gettysburg. After Stevens’s death the iron furnace changed hands many times, and in 1902 the land was sold to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 1927 the Pennsylvania Alpine Club rebuilt the stack of the old furnace as a reduced-scale monument, and this stack and a blacksmith shop that serves as a historical center are the only visible reminders of the early ironworks. Caledonia has 10 miles of hiking trails, and the Appalachian Trail crosses the central portion of the park. A brochure on the hiking trails is available at the park office. Anglers can enjoy fishing at the East Branch Conococheague and Rocky Mountain Creeks and at Carbaugh Run, which flow through the park and the surrounding Michaux State Forest. Brown trout, rainbow trout, native brook trout, and some warm-water game fish are found here. About 740 acres of the park are open to hunting, trapping, and the training of hunting dogs during established seasons. Deer, rabbit, squirrel, and turkey are common game hunted, but the hunting of woodchucks, also known as groundhogs, is prohibited. The park has a swimming pool that can be enjoyed from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day for an additional fee, and more than 450 picnic tables are located throughout the park. During the summer, campfire programs, guided hikes, and environmental education programs are offered by a naturalist. An arts and crafts fair is held in the park annually on the second Saturday of July. Admission is free, and about 200 artisans display their handcrafted items, including wood carvings, folk art, pottery, stained glass, and more. The first fair was held in 1981, and today around 10,000 people usually attend this fun event. If you decide to spend the night, there are two campgrounds within the park, with a total of 170 tent and trailer sites available from the day before trout season in March until after the end of deer season in December. Amenities include hot showers, flush toilets, and a sanitary dump station, and electricity is available at some sites. Two modern cabins are also available for rent year-round. One is a 11⁄2-story frame house, and the other is a two-story frame house, and both houses come with a modern kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room, central heat, and three bedrooms that can sleep 10 people. To get to the park from Gettysburg, take U.S. Route 30 west to the intersection with Route 233. Just outside the park is Bobby A’s Grill and Bar (6880 Chambersburg Road, Fayetteville; 717-352-2252). About 12 miles west of Gettysburg on US 30, this is a popular restaurant. Open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, Bobby A’s offers prime rib, steaks, seafood, pasta, broasted chicken, and a wide variety of appetizers. Owner Bob Arahovas knows the restaurant business—his family has owned the Lincoln Diner in Gettysburg since the 1980s. (See the Restaurants chapter for more on the Lincoln Diner.)

City: Fayetteville, PA

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (717) 352-2211

Address: 10099 Lincoln Way East

Description: Michaux State Forest spans three counties, Adams, Cumberland, and Franklin, and contains three state parks within its boundaries, Caledonia, Mont Alto, and Pine Grove Furnace. It stretches from just southwest of Harrisburg, the state capital, to the Maryland border. This forest of 85,000-plus acres is in the South Mountain range, which is 6 to 7 miles wide and bordered on both sides by agricultural valleys. Within the forest are 130 miles of state forest roads and 39 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, horseback riding, rock climbing, bicycling, and snowmobiling are among the many outdoor pursuits available on the grounds. Picnics and day-use activities go on at the Old Forge State Forest Picnic Area. The state bought its first parcel of land here in 1901, and most of what is today Michaux State Forest was purchased by the early 1930s. The area was originally two separate forests, the Michaux and the Mont Alto, but the forests were consolidated in 1942. The first forest tree nursery in any Pennsylvania state forest was created in 1902 at Mont Alto, and a year later the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy was opened near the nursery. When it opened, the academy was one of only two schools in the country that was dedicated to training professional foresters. Mont Alto also erected the first wooden fire tower in the state parks in 1905, and in 1914 it erected the state park system’s first steel structure. Today state-forest timber is harvested to create many wood products, but potable water is Michaux’s most valuable resource. The municipal water supplies of many local communities depend on the pure water found in the forest.

City: Fayetteville, PA

Category: Shopping

Telephone: (717) 352-2164, (888) 805-7056

Address: 40 Rocky Mountain Road

Description: Opened in the early 1950s, Totem Pole Playhouse presents professional summer theater within Caledonia State Park. The late William H. Putch was the playhouse’s second artistic director, and he guided the playhouse to national prominence during his tenure from 1954 to 1984. Working closely with his wife, actress Jean Stapleton, William Putch was responsible for 270 productions at Totem Pole, in addition to directing several national tours. Totem Pole Playhouse is one of the few remaining summer theaters that maintain a resident company of actors. Interspersed with the regular faces have been a series of well-known actors, including Keir Dullea, Sada Thompson, John Ritter, Sandy Dennis, Harry Groener, and Curtis Armstrong. Six plays are staged per season in the air-conditioned playhouse, and a postshow discussion is scheduled for one night during each play’s run. Here the audience can join the cast, staff, and directors for informal chats about the show and the playhouse. Plays are held in the evening on Tuesday through Sunday, and matinee shows are held on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons. Tickets run around $35, and three subscription plans are available. Students can attend any performance for just $13. Children younger than age five are not admitted to the theater. Totem Pole Playhouse also hosts a popular summer theater camp for students age 8 to 16. Enrollment is on a first-come, first-serve basis, and no theater experience is necessary.