PLAINS, GA — Long before he walked the halls of the White House or brokered international peace agreements, Jimmy Carter was a young boy roaming the longleaf pine forests and tilling the rich soil of southwest Georgia.
Today, the sprawling land that shaped the 39th President of the United States has secured a permanent future as a protected public natural area.
In a major conservation victory, the Conservation Fund announced the $8.5 million acquisition of the 2,458-acre Carter family farm and an adjacent tract just outside Plains, Georgia.
The landmark deal ensures that the landscape where a young Jimmy Carter farmed peanuts, corn, and sugarcane alongside his father will forever remain intact.
For the Carter family, the sale represents the fulfillment of President Carter’s lifelong devotion to the land. In his later years, the Fund says, President Carter took active steps to restore the native ecology of the property, requesting that mature stands of longleaf pine be preserved and directing the replanting of young longleaf pines across the acreage.
He and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter spent time strolled the woodsy land long after he left the White House.
Stacy Funderburke, vice president of the Conservation Fund’s Central Southeast region, draws a direct line from Carter’s youth in that greenspace to his passion as a conservationist. He notes Carter protected millions of America’s most important acres of wilderness.
“The really awesome part of this story is that that all started with a connection to the land in the place that he grew up in southwest Georgia around Plains, and this farm was a big part of that,” says Funderburke. “This is likely the first place he would’ve stepped onto the peanut farm with his dad as a kid. He spent time roaming the woods and creeks there as a kid and then when he came back from the presidency, this was his go-to place for he and Rosalynn to get outside, take a walk in the woods. He would go turkey hunting here and hang out with his grandkids, and it’s a really special place.”
The Fund details how Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in late 1980, protecting more than 104 million acres in what is still the United States’ largest protected public lands expansion in its history.
He also established 39 national park system units, including the Martin Luther King, Jr., historic site and the Chattahoochee River recreation area, both in Atlanta.
During the energy crisis in the 1970s, the president installed solar panels for heating atop the White House’s West Wing in 1979. They were removed in 1986.
A man who was a longtime manager of the property with the Carters reached out to The Conservation Fund to get this buy ball rolling.
“He knew that there was a wildlife management area next door that was open to the public and protected, and he knew that President Carter would want to see this place protected,” says Funderburke.
Expanding Land, Protecting Wildlife
The acquisition bridges historic preservation with environmental protection. The farm directly borders the existing Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area (WMA), which was established in 2019 to safeguard native species.
Under the current plan, The Conservation Fund will hold and manage the property while lining up funding and preparing it for public access. Ownership transfers to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2028.
By adding the Carter farm, the WMA will expand to nearly 7,000 acres. Lee Taylor, the chief of game management for the DNR’s Wildlife Resources division, calls it “fantastic” to grow the footprint on such a valuable WMA.
“I’m very excited,” says Taylor. “Not only from the historical perspective, but also that we just get to continue to manage good quality habitat and continue that stewardship that the Carters had.”
Taylor says the property contains critical habitat for the threatened gopher tortoise, Georgia’s state reptile. Being able to preserve more of the longleaf pines is also key to the state DNR.
The space will be opened to the public in about six months, according to Funderburke. Taylor says there will be a lot for the public to enjoy, and a purchase of a hunting and fishing license will provide access to the Carter farm and to 1.1 million more acres statewide.
“For Georgia and the country, it’s a historically significant piece of property. We’re very excited to get that. There’ll be good deer hunting, turkey hunting, small game opportunities out there. You’ll be able to fish in some of the ponds that Jimmy Carter fished in,” says Taylor.
Taylor was especially delighted on a half-day visit to the property admire the pretty longleaf pine stands--and to see the pond which was the birthplace of “the rabbit story” during Carter’s presidency.
“On one of his off days, he was fishing out of a johnboat, and a rabbit swam across the pond that he was in--which rabbits will do sometimes to escape predators,” says Taylor.
The hissing rabbit was reportedly determined to climb into the president’s johnboat.
“It got back to Washington that there was an ‘attack of the rabbit’ out there, and everybody had fun with that. To know that story and then see the pond-- that was very cool.”
A Living Legacy Open to All
Jimmy Carter served as president for four years beginning in 1977. He died at 100 in 2024, about a year after Rosalynn. While the nearby Jimmy Carter National Historical Park preserves the president’s historic boyhood home and family store, this newly-acquired farmland protects the expansive natural environment that defined his early years and inspired his environmental policies.
Officials anticipate opening the land to the public for hunting, fishing, hiking, and wildlife observation in mid-2027, allowing visitors from around the world to walk the same red-dirt paths and pine stands where a presidency began.
“People can go take that same walk in the woods that President Carter and Rosalynn did so many years ago, and reconnect to that legacy and to him,” says Funderburke. “He’s played such an important part in so many people’s lives, and this is a place that will be available to the public where people can go and make that connection.”