PEA RIDGE — Before Tuesday afternoon, April 26, I had never set foot on the soil of the state of Georgia. We crossed into Georgia from the town of Lanett, Ala. We had had lunch in Lanett and explored the town briefly, just enough to discover that it was much larger than we expected, but that it had lost a major employer, and is seeing population loss because of the closing of the huge fiber products mill there. I had anticipated Lanett as just a wide place in the road, but we found it to be about twice the size of today’s Pea Ridge.

Before we had driven even 10 miles into west Georgia, we came by a fascinating old crossroads store. The place was called Jones Crossroads. The old store dates from about 1900, and apparently over the years had changed very little from its original shape. The owner was now mostly selling antiques, but the store had long been a general store and had supplied its community with a wide variety of products.

The store has been in the same family since its beginning, and the current owner is a fourth generation proprietor. For some reason, possibly digital camera malfunction or operator error, I came away without a single picture of the old store or its setting.

Bummer!

I guess not too many people go on vacation to stop at old-fashioned stores, but we like that kind of exploring. My wife occasionally spots a yard sale along the way, and after we have passed it, says we should have stopped for it. Luckily we are usually already past the spot, and of course by then the car is headed the wrong way.

Once in awhile we have to stop and go back. I also like to look at the lay of the land, the field cropsand even the color of soils along the way. Before we were far into Georgia, I began seeing much less timber and more flat open fields as compared to Alabama. I was very surprised to see red soil, as red as one sees in central Oklahoma.

In Oklahoma and Arkansas, red soil usually means poor fertility. But apparently not so in Georgia. The red fields looked pretty productive. My camera worked when I took a picture of the red soil.

After spending Tuesday night at Americus, Ga., we got up on Wednesday, April 28, and drove west to Plains, Ga., the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter. Plains is located in the southwest Georgia, an agricultural area known for growing peanuts. In his early adult life, Jimmy Carter had intended to pursue a career in the U.S.

Navy, but after his father’s death, he resigned from the Navy, returned to Plains, and operated a large peanut processing companythere. We first visited a very interesting Georgia welcome center just east of Plains, and had our picture taken with Jimmy Carter.

Well, actually it was with an almost life-size cardboard cut-out of Mr. Carter, standing near the entrance.

But the picture looks pretty life-like.

The house where former President Carter and Rosalyn live is in Plains, but it is not open to the public, so we didn’t actually see the Carters. Billy Carter’s filling station is a place to visit, as is the old train depot that was the Carter campaign headquarters for the presidential campaign in the mid-1970s. The trains still run through Plains.

One of my kind-of-off-thewall dreams is that someday our Pea Ridge will have a commuter train to take people to work. What if the Frisco railroad had come through Pea Ridge instead of Avoca in 1881?

We discovered that the old Plains High School has been converted into a museum, part of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site. It had really interesting displays of the history of Plains and the surrounding community, as well as account’s of Mr. Carter’s school days, beloved teachers and so on. We spent an hour or so going through the old school building.

Then we spent another hour just exploring the streets of the town, and seeing the churches and stores. The Maranatha Baptist Church, where the Carters attend and where the former president teaches Sunday School, is located several blocks north of the old high school. We also stopped at the cemetery, just west of Plains, where Mr. Carter’s parents and brother Billy Carter are buried.

Next, we drove out west of Plains to the Carter home place, where Jimmy Carter grew up. The farmhouse is open to the public. Lots of school children were visiting there along with us. The setting is like being back on a typical farm in the 1930s and 1940s. Then we drove back into Plains and had lunch at Mom’s Kitchen, which is THE place to eat in Plains, Ga.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history.

He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 06/15/2011