Jim Holechek, the Towson man who led the drive to build the Maryland memorial at Gettysburg, now wants to bag an even bigger prize: the 307-foot Gettysburg National Battlefield Tower.
He wants to tear the eyesore down.
Fresh from Sunday's unveiling of the Maryland memorial at Gettysburg, Mr. Holechek has launched a nationwide fund-raising campaign for more than $6 million to buy the steel-gray observation tower, dismantle it and donate its land to the National Park Service.
"When you're meditating on the events at Gettysburg or just walking around and looking at the monuments, you don't want this large needle looming over you," Mr. Holechek said. "I just don't think it's appropriate for a battlefield."
The tower has been a source of controversy since even before it opened in 1974 as a private commercial venture.
Visitors pay to ascend it for a bird's-eye view of the famed battlefield.
Led by then-Gov. Milton J. Shapp, Pennsylvania officials decried it as an assault on the environment and carried the unsuccessful fight against it all the way to the state Supreme Court. Preservationists and Civil War enthusiasts, including park officials, also condemned it as an unsightly edifice despoiling hallowed and pastoral ground.
"What Mr. Holechek proposes to do is return to the American people a part of the Gettysburg battlefield," said Katie Lawhon, spokeswoman for the Gettysburg National Military Park. "We wholeheartedly support his proposal."
The tower stands on 7 acres of privately owned land just below the National Cemetery, where President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address Nov. 19, 1863.
The site is one of more than 100 private parcels inside the park that the park service wants to protect from development. These plots consist of about 1,200 of the park's 6,000 acres, Ms. Lawhon said.
"Our objective is to acquire the land, to see the tower removed and to restore that part of the battlefield," she said. "Mr. Holechek's proposal allows us to achieve our goal without any federal expenditure."
Mr. Holechek's motivation is that the unsightly tower mars the view from the new Maryland memorial to Culp's Hill, where most of the Marylanders who fought at Gettysburg saw action.
Some might dismiss this as an unfortunate distraction -- but not Mr. Holechek. An unflappable workhorse, the 65-year-old retiree owned his own advertising company in Baltimore. After touring the Gettysburg battlefield in 1989 and discovering that Maryland had no monument honoring all its soldiers, he vowed to build one. And he did.
Now he's applying the same determination to tearing down the tower.
"When you retire you study yourself and try to figure out what you're here for," Mr. Holechek said. "I realized that these are the kinds of things I should be doing. And as long as I have the energy, I'll continue doing them."
He said the owners of both the tower and the land on which it stands want $6.6 million. Jerome H. Gerber, the lawyer for the tower's owners, said that's close to the asking price.
"All the partners involved [in the tower and its land] have agreed to sell their interests for a price to be negotiated," Mr. Gerber said. "I told Mr. Holechek, when you have the money come back and knock on our door."
Mr. Holechek has written a letter to Ted Turner, whose company made the 1993 movie "Gettysburg," asking him to serve as chairman of what Mr. Holechek calls the Fund To Buy the Gettysburg National Tower in '95.
Mr. Turner could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Mr. Holechek said he has already received a commitment from Controlled Demolition Inc., a Phoenix firm, to take the tower down for free. That will save about $650,000, Mr. Holechek said.
"It was hitting the mother lode on the first shot," he said, laughing.
As for additional fund raising, he said, some national groups already have expressed interest.
He said he also expects the public to chip in with $5 and $10 contributions.
"Everybody knows about the National Tower at Gettysburg," he said.