Results tagged “diorama” from Cannonball

During the early 1950s, Curvin Heiss and his family lived on East Philadelphia Street in downtown York, Pennsylvania. He and his young son Curvin, Hr. spent hours creating and painting thousands of 54mm toy soldiers, which, after they moved to Gettysburg and purchased the historic Dobbin House, became part of a tourist attraction that remained popular in the late 50s through the early 1970s. Heiss sold the building and the diorama a decade after opening it to the public.

Today, the old Dobbin House is one of my favorite restaurants in Gettysburg.

Here is a link to a couple posts on my Charge! wargaming and diorama blog that I maintain in parallel to this Cannonball blog.

I will be posting nearly two dozen photos of this classic 1960s diorama that has been seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, over the years.

See my Charge! blog to view these pictures.

A typical miniature wargaming layout / diorama created by Scott Mingus of the Johnny Reb Gaming Society, an international wargaming association headquartered in York County. {Click to enlarge)

More than 1,200 military hobbyists / miniature wargamers packed the Eisenhower Inn and adjacent All-Star Sports Complex in Gettysburg this past weekend for the annual Fall-In! wargaming convention. The show features scores of miniature wargames from all periods of warfare, including the Civil War. A dealers' hall and flea market in the All-Star offer shoppers a wide variety of merchandise of interest, including historical books, paintings, art prints, collectible 54mm toy soldiers from such makers as Conte and Britains, miniature wargaming and military diorama accessories and figures, and other goodies.

For those of you who are wargamers, I am pleased to announce the impending publication of my latest collaboration with Chicago graphics designer and game author Ivor Janci. Entitled Brothers Divided: Skirmishes in the Gettysburg Campaign, the book presents several historical situations at various engagements during the campaign for wargamers to refight or try to change history.

Among the battles of local interest for gamers to play is the Skirmish at Hanover Junction (Elijah V. White versus the 20th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia). Illustrations and maps are by Ivor Janci and Colin Burke; dioramas by Dennis Morris, and other gaming photos by Gettysburg's own John Mayer. For more information, or to read about the hobby of miniature wargaming and see scores of photos of games in progress, please click here.