Plains – Building a better South

July 17, 2013July 13, 2013

Old depot, Plains, Ga.

This old train platform in Plains, Ga., is preserved at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site to highlight what an old train depot used to look like. The other end of the building was the first campaign headquarters for Carter’s 1976 successful bid for the presidency.

We liked how the Park Service kept this part of the depot because it recalls simpler, slower times without all of the hustle and bustle of modern life (cell phones, computers, GPS, etc.)

Plains, about 15 miles west of Americus in Georgia’s agricultural heartland, had 776 people in 2010, according to the Census. Three in five residents are black, with whites comprising almost all of the rest. About a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.

July 15, 2013July 17, 2013

Campaign headquarters, Plains, Ga.

In 1975 in this old train depot in Plains, Ga., former President Jimmy Carter started what some thought would be an unlikely presidential campaign. The depot, now part of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, reportedly operated from 1888 to 1951 in this town of about 700. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, grew up in Plains.

Photographer Michael Kaynard noted, “There is a block of tourist businesses just down from the train depot Carter used as his campaign headquarters. Other attractions include his boyhood farm, Plains High School, Billy Carter’s gas station, Rosalynn Carter’s family home and the private Carter compound. Some of the land is being used for agriculture but it would be bypassed except for its ties to the President and his family.”

Plains, whose public school system was absorbed into that of nearby Americus and Sumter County, had 776 people in 2010, according to the Census. Three in five residents are black, with whites comprising almost all of the rest. About a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.

July 13, 2013July 13, 2013

Presidential classroom, Plains, Ga.

: Classroom, Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, Plains, Ga. Photo by Michael Kaynard.

Former President Jimmy Carter went to school in this Plains, Ga., classroom at Plains High School, now the museum and visitors’ center at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site.

To our knowledge, this is the only federal presidential historic site in the Southern Crescent. All over town, it’s easy to see commonalities with other rural communities across the Crescent — small-town life dominated by agriculture and a close-knit community.