The 55th North Carolina Infantry Regiment outflanked the federal government shutdown without a shot being fired.
On Seminary Ridge inside Gettysburg National Military Park, some 30 Civil War reenactors representing the Confederate outfit held the site of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s battle headquarters in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. They conjured the past, untouched by the latest Washington fight about government funding.
And they weren’t alone. Less than a week into the latest shutdown, quick snapshots of two popular National Park Service units suggest the most-dreaded impacts have not been felt. But park advocates warned they are still wary of potential problems if the shutdown drags on while the Trump administration keeps national parks mostly open.
“As a member of the public, you would think nothing really unusual is going on,” said Jackie Spainhour, the president and CEO of the Gettysburg Foundation. “But if this shutdown lasts for a significant amount of time, you are going to see the shutdown in places throughout the battlefield. Trash will be overflowing in certain places. Maintenance issues will build up.”
The Gettysburg Foundation owns and operates the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitors Center. Although it works hand in hand with the National Park Service, the foundation does not rely on federal funds and so can keep the center open.
Visitors to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, meanwhile, found the bathrooms were clean, the trash was taken away and the gas was still pumping at the Big Meadows Wayside gas station. But even with a busy Sunday crowd humming along Skyline Drive, where leaves were just starting to blush their October color, park rangers had mostly stayed home.
The Trump administration ordered national parks to mostly remain open to the public during the current funding lapse, although with only a minimal number of staffers on duty. With no appropriations to pay its staff, the administration last week furloughed roughly 9,000 of the National Park Service’s more than 14,000 permanent employees.
Across the country, nonprofits have stepped in to help support parks during the funding gap. In West Virginia and Utah state, funds have been pledged to reopen shuttered park facilities.
For federal officials, parks pose tricky questions during shutdowns. People love them, neighboring communities rely upon them, and politicians are quick to defend them — either as a way to ease some shutdown pain or as political leverage to pressure political opponents to make a deal.
In 2013, the Obama administration locked down parks as it negotiated with House Republicans trying to undercut Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The first Trump administration largely kept parks open five years later during an impasse over funding a border wall, tapping recreation fees to pay for staff.
Trash piled up, and in some locations, visitors damaged park resources, notably cutting down Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park in California.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said he was “fighting” to keep parks open to the public. The National Parks Conservation Association, which opposes keeping parks open during the shutdown, has urged the public to send Burgum letters calling for parks to be shuttered to protect them from possible damage.
NPS did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
In Shenandoah on Sunday, a small number of staffers were seen manning the entrance stations, patrolling the roads and keeping park bathrooms clean. They were either paid with recreation fees previously collected by the park or were working without pay until the government reopens, according to the National Park Service’s funding lapse contingency plan.
Harsha Rao, 50, a tourist visiting from Bangalore, India, said parks probably shouldn’t be open to the public because they could be damaged. He said more important government services should be kept going.
“If this is just open and nobody is there to take care of it, it may get vandalized,” Rao said. “Unless somebody is there to watch it has to be closed, right?”
Leaf peeping still on at Shenandoah
A pair of rangers in gray and green waved cars through the Swift Run Gap entrance Sunday, eschewing collecting fees from the leaf-watchers and Sunday cruisers. Permitting for the popular Old Rag hike was still running, even with few rangers to check passes. Visitors pressed their faces to the locked glass doors of the Harry F. Byrd Sr. Visitor Center.
Shenandoah in western Virginia is one of the East Coast’s most popular parks, attracting more than 1.7 million visitors last year. The largest slice of those visitors — one out of five — come in October when the leaves change colors.
During previous shutdowns Shenandoah’s main challenge was trash pickup, noted Jessica Cocciolone, the executive director of the Shenandoah National Park Trust, an official nonprofit partner with NPS.
“The trash is a big issue because of the bears,” she said, noting the region’s robust black bear population. “I think the wildlife issue was a problem [in previous shutdowns] and will be a problem if trash isn’t maintained and managed. That’s a big part of visitor safety.”
The trust, which isn’t currently providing funds to keep the park open but plans to organize volunteers for potential trash and cleanup duty, is urging visitors to avoid visiting the park during the shutdown if possible, and behave conscientiously if they must, such as packing out their trash and being prepared with appropriate clothing and footwear for hikes. During the shutdown, emergency response is likely to be delayed, Cocciolone said.
Some visitors wondered whether the parks should be open, even as they were grateful that politics hadn’t ruined their weekend plans. Others said they saw the parks staying open as a fair return on their tax dollars.
“As taxpayers, we pay for these parks,” said Ross Pilotte, an environmental permitting expert in Washington.
Pilotte and about 20 car enthusiasts had rendezvoused at the Big Meadows ranger station for a collective drive through the park.
“I understand that there are staff here that need to get paid,” Pilotte said. “I understand the bathrooms need to get clean. I understand trash. However, I do not believe that any facility open to the taxpaying public should be shuttered.”
Rachel, a 38-year-old government worker picnicking with her husband under towering oak trees and a view of Big Meadows, voiced a different perspective. The couple had driven up to Skyline on Sunday without thinking about the shutdown until they reached the entrance kiosk.
They were waived through without needing to show their America the Beautiful pass.
“I would hypocritically say that maybe they should close them,” she said of parks. She declined to share her last name because she worked for the government. “I don’t know if the park rangers are getting paid or not. It’s kind of unfair to keep them working.”
Most visitors were glad to be able to recreate regardless of their views.
Justin Schwartz, 37, had come up to the park with his wife Bethany and two young kids.
“I’ve seen both sides of it,” he said. “I can see just closing and not leaving it open when there’s no services from the government. I was in favor of that, but I still like being able to come up here.”
The open Civil War battlefield
The sprawling 5,700-acre battlefield in Pennsylvania, crisscrossed by trails and roads designed for auto tours, remains open to visitors. The National Park Service initially announced it would close the Gettysburg National Cemetery, the site of President Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” but then reversed course to keep the popular tourist destination accessible.
Most of the park’s staffers are on furlough, though a contingent of law enforcement rangers still conduct patrols.
Less than a week into the government shutdown, its potentially significant impacts remain unseen and, in some places, unfelt altogether. Public portable toilets visited Saturday seemed no more vile than usual in the park that draws more than 700,000 visitors a year.
Visitors flock here to see the site of one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War that also saw the Union troops ultimately prevail in 1863 in a turning point victory.
“We’ve had quite a few visitors come in that were not really even aware there was a shutdown, which I thought was interesting,” said Spainhour with the Gettysburg Foundation. “We’ve had several people say that to our ticketing staff.”
Public-private partnerships have helped cushion the blow.
With its vast 139,000-square-foot museum and visitor center, an annual budget of roughly $15 million and a staff that can grow from 50 to roughly 100 depending on the season, the Gettysburg Foundation is almost a park service surrogate.
Visitors lined up as usual Saturday to buy tickets for a “virtual reality” immersion in Gettysburg’s highlights or to see the famed 1884 Cyclorama rendition of the three-day battle. They checked out the bookstore and gift shop, dined at the Battlegrounds Cafe & Grille or simply moved on to the battlefield itself.
A Boston University ROTC contingent rested during a two-day staff ride for future Army officers. Bearded members of the Road Wolves Motorcycle Club scoped out the scene. Red-shirted Boy Scouts from Dallas, Pennsylvania’s Troop 281 hiked back from the cemetery.
At the cemetery, the usual ranger talks were canceled. But Megan and Eric Stevenson, residents of Erie, Pennsylvania, said their planned horseback jaunts were unaffected.
“Our whole plan was riding the battlefields with our horses,” said Megan Stevenson. “We rode four hours on Thursday and two hours today.”
The pervasive sense of normalcy matters to Gettysburg, as it does to all gateway communities. In 2023, visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park contributed an estimated $55 million in local spending, which supported over 650 jobs, according to a National Park Service study. Nearly all of that spending was attributed to nonlocal visitors.
On Saturday, downtown Gettysburg was more or less hopping as usual.
The Hotel Gettysburg was one of several in town that were sold out for the weekend. Customers, some in town for the Gettysburg College homecoming, waited 30 minutes or more for a table at ever-popular The Pub & Restaurant.
Meanwhile, a little less than 1 mile away on Seminary Ridge, North Carolina state wildland firefighter Jeremy Graves and his fellow Civil War reenactors were going about their old-time camp routines.
Like the privately owned visitors center, the Lee headquarters site is privately owned and immune to the government shutdown. The nonprofit American Battlefield Trust bought the former motel site and returned acres to something like their 1863 condition.
For the 55th North Carolina men, this helped make possible a weekend bivouac without worrying about the park service shutting down.
“Our focus has been getting set up for this,” Graves said, gesturing toward the stacked rifles and neatly arrayed tents.
Back at the visitors center, Spainhour summed up the state of affairs at this unique park.
“People can still have a Gettysburg experience,” she said. “What they’re missing is the park rangers. They’re missing having a park ranger to interact with. They’re missing being able to go on a ranger program.”
