The dispute began in August 1891 when the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association's board approved attorney Samuel Swope's motion to deny trolley right-of-way along GBMA roads.

[3] Despite the 1896 US Supreme Court ruling that the railway could be seized for historic preservation,[1] as well as earlier legislative efforts to appropriate federal acquisition funds, create a War Department commission, and form the Gettysburg National Military Park; the trolley continued operations until obsolete in 1916.

[7]: '93  Federal acquisition of land that would become the 1895 Gettysburg National Military Park began on June 2, 1893, with a tract of 0.387 acres (0.157 ha) from John H. Miller & wife.

Trolley right-of-way over the private 900 sq ft (84 m2) 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument tract at The Angle was denied by June 13, 1893;[16][17] and the route was changed to instead use the Emmitsburg Road.

[10] The PA Attorney General denied action after the subsequent hearing: "the right of owners of private property—whatever public interest may attach to it—to dispose of it to passenger railway corporations, cannot be disputed.

[1] "The impression in the town" was the Secretary of War would not pay the $30,000 nor "take further steps" to acquire the railway,[37] and the trolley operated even after the Commission—following a May 7 federal hearing[7]: '01 —acquired 2 William H. Tipton tracts of 14.2 acres (5.7 ha) on December 31, 1901.

The Gettysburg Transit Company ordered a trustee's auction in the foreclosure of the 1898 mortgage[40] (purchased in September),[41] and an injury lawsuit was initiated[42] for trolley cars colliding on August 15 near Devil's Den.

[43] Trolley operations ended in November 1916 when the railway had become obsolete with disrepair[44] and increased use[45] of battlefield avenues that had been improved with War Department Telford piking.

[47] Instead of paying damages to the trolley company, the funds paid for removing the tracks and acquiring the associated landowners' tracts (most had been deeded to the US years earlier).