Growing up in Plains, Georgia shaped Jimmy Carter, just as he shaped his hometown

Drive into Plains, Georgia, from nearby Americus, and there is no doubt whose hometown you are entering.

"Welcome to historic Plains Georgia, home of Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States," reads the roadside sign. Plains and the Carter family are interwoven. The town, where Carter grew up and still resides, shaped the future president, but the president has also shaped the town.

With the recent announcement that Carter entered hospice care at his home, a short stroll from the intersection that marks downtown, national attention is once more focused on Plains. But the town is accustomed to welcoming out-of-towners. While the population proper is about 700 people, as many as 80,000 tourists annually visit the farming community in south Georgia.

Carter in hospice:Former President Jimmy Carter enters hospice care at 98, charity says

"I think it's the ... phenomenon of a small town boy ... actually becoming the president of the United States" that brings people in, said Millard Simmons, a lifelong resident who has served on several boards to oversee and develop Plains. "President Carter's very unique. President Carter could have lived anywhere in the world he wanted to live, but he wanted to come back to a place that I think he loves; I know he loves."

Four sites across the town are national parks, including Carter's boyhood home, the former high school, the Depot that served as Carter's campaign headquarters, and the current Carter family home, which is managed by the National Park Service and will eventually become open to the public. Other historical sites associated with the family are marked by plaques and walking tour signs.

"When President Carter was elected governor back in the seventies, tourists started coming to Plains," said Jill Stuckey, the superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. "And ever since, you know there's been ebbs and flows. But Plains today, we cater to tourists. We love seeing the tourists come to town."

Stay in the conversation on politics: Sign up for the OnPolitics newsletter

The Carters leave a legacy

The Carters were one of the original families in Plains, Simmons said. Besides the farm, Carter's family owned some of the warehouses for Plain's other major source of revenue, peanuts — an industry that is still going strong in the town.

"We try to buy from the farms, about 7,500 tons a year. That's kind of been our goal," said Jeff Clements, part owner and partner with the Buffalo Peanut Company.

Most of these farms are very local. Clements said one field they buy from is in the city limits of Plains. Besides buying and holding commercial peanuts, the company also stores, processes and annually returns about 12,000 tons of seed peanuts to farmers across the region.

Atlanta: At Jimmy Carter library in Atlanta, visitors pay homage to 'a people's president'

"Our daddies handled peanuts and our granddaddies were the ones that put in some of these facilities," Clements said. "So that's the reason why we're still growing peanuts in this area to this day. The dirt, the people and a lot of hardheadedness."

The Buffalo Peanut Company bought warehouses owned by a local family, the Williams, which were interspersed on the same parcel of land with the Carter family warehouses, one of which still has a sign with the Carter family name on it. Now for the first time they are all owned by the same company.

"You had the Carters, and then you had the Williams; good family friends," Clements said. "I guess you could say competitors, but, you know, real cordial."

After his presidency, though, Clements said Carter turned to humanitarian work and got out of farming for the most part.

"He really got involved very heavily in Habitat for Humanity, and so that's primarily where his focus was," Clements said.

It's not just the Carter name or former Carter businesses that mark the town, though. The former president himself and his family have been an active presence in the town.

"I've been here ... going on 78 years," said Curtis Evans, a local resident. "I know everybody around here, know ... President Jimmy Carter, his family and everything."

Evans had fond memories of meeting Carter and Carter's mother.

"I had quite a few meals at her house on Saturday evenings when I used to deliver groceries," he said. "I can't say nothing bad about them."

Embracing the 39th President

The number of tourists is only expected to increase, perhaps even double once Jimmy Carter dies, Simmons said. But the town has been intentional about the way it grew and made use of the Carter presidency, preparing for the broad interest. When he was elected, a delegation of residents visited the Lyndon Johnson ranch in Texas to see what the future might look like.

"The stores had to change once President Carter was elected president, simply because there was a grocery store downtown, but people couldn't get down there because the town was packed with tourists, and therefore there was no place for them to park," he said.

Since then, though, Simmons said that the town has filled in downtown with new businesses. Twenty years ago, residents formed the Better Hometown Board to purchase decaying properties and put in new businesses. In recent years, the Better Hometown Board turned the properties over to Friends of Jimmy Carter, which now owns a portion of downtown.

"They're using it in order to better the lives of not only tourists but particularly for the people that live here in Plains," he said.

For Evans, the town has managed to be a home. It was sometimes difficult growing up, he said, and he left for a time through the military and working for a railroad company. But Plains was where he settled.

"To me, I can't find a better place," he said. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same thing."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jimmy Carter's legacy shaped Plains, Georgia, his hometown