After funeral, Jimmy Carter's legacy will live on in Plains, residents say

PLAINS, Ga. — For most of these last 100 years, Jimmy Carter was Plains and Plains, the town that nourished him and continued to call him back, was Jimmy Carter.

The former president, whose funeral was Thursday, was born in Plains, moved back after he lost the White House and, on Dec. 29, died here.

In between, he and his wife Rosalynn Carter helped make Plains one of the state’s most notable tourist stops. According to county officials, Plains, with fewer than 1,000 residents, sees more than 300,000 visitors a year.

From the tiny downtown, which is essentially a block of stores anchored by the City Hall building, a person can walk to Carter’s old high school, which is now part of the National Park Service. They can walk to the old train depot, which famously served as his campaign headquarters. They can walk to the house he lived in since 1961 or the home Rosalynn Carter was born in.

Every shop on that downtown strip is in some way dedicated to the Carters. Walls are lined with pictures, paintings and caricatures of him. Shelves are lined with autographed books.

Now, as the town in rural, southwest Georgia mourns the loss of its most famous son, it also must ponder how — and if — to move on.

“After Friday we are just going to start settling back down and getting back to some type of normal,” said Lynton Earl Godwin, who is known around town as “Boze” and served as the mayor of Plains for 38 years until he retired last January. “The town has been anticipating this, and President Carter was anticipating it also.”

Godwin, 81, knew Carter all his life and remembers as a boy delivering medicine to him from his father’s Plains Pharmacy, which has been in his family for decades.

“I’m very sad,” Godwin said. “He was not just the president; he was my friend.”

Godwin said Carter made a concerted effort to make sure Plains survived after he was gone.

Shortly after the park district was enacted by Congress in 1987, the Carters said they would open their burial site to the public as part of the National Park Service. Currently, the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park consists of three other landmarks — his former high school, his presidential campaign headquarters and the farm he grew up on. Carter was buried Thursday on a plot next to Rosalynn on his family property.

“Being buried here, and his wife being buried here, he was trying to ensure that we’ll still have people coming by,” Godwin said. “When the Park Service opens up his house for tourism, it is going to be a tremendous draw. I think people will still come by. I sure do.”

Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said plans are underway to at least open the grounds of the Carter home to the public as early as this summer. Opening the actually home for tours, he said, will be further down the line.

“This is very important. One of the reasons the Carters chose to be buried in Plains (is) because they saw it as an opportunity to bring people here,” Litterst said. “A lot of people will come here to pay their respects who probably would not have come if they had chosen to be buried in Atlanta, where the Carter Center is.”

Though Carter is no longer alive, his spirit lives on, said Bonita Hightower, owner of Bonita’s Carry-Out, a restaurant a half-mile down the road from Carter’s home.

“He made such a landmark after he left the White House and such an impact in the world,” Hightower said. “So, in my sentiment, he’s still here.”

She thinks Plains now has an opportunity to become like Warm Springs, the small Georgia town so frequented by Franklin D. Roosevelt that he built a special home there — called the Little White House — to accommodate his wheelchair use.

“I think if people wake up and see what we got here, we can be the same as where they had the Little White House,” Hightower said.

Anthony Jones also thinks the region may attract more visitors than when Carter was alive because people will be curious to learn of his origins. Jones lives in Americus, a neighboring city, but has already noticed people coming from other states just to see where the former president was raised.

“They’ll want to know a little more about what really (was) going on in Plains, and where he really grew up,” he said.

Throughout the week, one could barely get fully inside Plains Peanuts without owner Amy Greene offering samples of peanut butter ice cream, along with her daughter, Riley, offering samples of fried peanuts. Both are local delicacies.

Greene, who purchased the landmark store only a year ago with her husband, Ken, is confident business and interest around Plains will remain strong after Carter’s passing.

“There are many small towns in Georgia that are dried up,” Greene said. “But President Carter has left a legacy here that I think will (live on). I have no doubt that we will survive. In fact, I think tourism will pick up. It’s going to be substantially better.”

At 3 p.m. Thursday, all downtown shops closed in Carter’s honor. His funeral service in Plains started a couple hours later, and, after darkness fell, he was buried outside his home.

Plains was quiet the evening before the funeral. The cool night air was made cozier with the warm, yellow Christmas lights that still ring the windows of downtown shops and crisscross the small road in front of them.

Huge banners near the town’s entrance announced the gratitude its residents feel for their longtime neighbor: “God bless you Jimmy Carter,” one reads.

“Thank you Mr. President,” the other said.

Metal barricades and white tape with the Carter Center logo lined the roads where the motorcade passed with Carter’s casket.

On Friday morning, the shops reopened. Plains woke up.

“We are going to be all right,” Greene said. “We will continue selling peanut butter ice cream and deep-fried peanuts.”