Jimmy Carter's family farm sold to conservation group for $8.5M, set to open to public

The farm outside Plains, Georgia, where Jimmy Carter worked peanut, corn and sugarcane fields as a boy, made a final fishing trip near the end of his life, and replanted young longleaf pines as one of his last acts on the land, has been permanently protected. The Conservation Fund announced Monday it has acquired the roughly 2,458-acre property for $8.5 million, with plans to open it to public hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation as soon as 2027.

The nonprofit said it plans to hand the land over to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2028, an action that would grow the state's Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area to just under 7,000 acres. The Conservation Fund helped Georgia establish that wildlife management area in 2019, specifically to protect longleaf pine habitat and the threatened gopher tortoise — the same species Carter's replanting effort was designed to help.

Long before Jimmy Carter protected millions of acres across America, he was a boy working the fields and roaming the woods of southwest Georgia. This land shaped him and his legacy, and he never stopped coming home to it. We're honored to help ensure this land remains healthy habitat for wildlife, and we look forward to the day it is open to everyone who wants to experience it.— Stacy Funderburke, Vice President of the Central Southeast Region, The Conservation Fund

Unlike the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home — the childhood residence maintained by the National Park Service — the Carter family farm was the broader working landscape where young Carter toiled alongside his father, Earl, in the family's agricultural operations and roamed the surrounding woods. He returned throughout his adult life to hunt, walk with his wife Rosalynn, and fish in the property's pond. The Carter family had owned the land since the early 1900s, according to the Conservation Fund.

Carter's connection to this land carried into his presidency and beyond. Signed by Carter in December 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act brought more than 104 million acres under protection — the largest expansion of protected public lands in United States history, according to the Conservation Fund. Among his other conservation achievements, Carter added 39 units to the National Park System, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Atlanta.

On the farm itself, Carter successfully requested that his family preserve a stand of mature longleaf pine trees. Near the end of his life, Carter oversaw a decision to replant much of the property with young longleaf pine, with the goal of bringing back the native forest that once blanketed the area. The adjacent creeks are also home to rare freshwater mussels. Carter died in December 2024 at the age of 100, roughly a year after the death of Rosalynn Carter.

For our family, this land was always about more than a farm. It was home — a place my grandparents treasured. We're grateful to The Conservation Fund and to everyone working to make sure it's protected for generations to come.— Jason Carter, grandson of President Jimmy Carter

Once transferred to the state, the property will become part of the Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area, making publicly accessible land in southwest Georgia that has been in private hands for more than a century.

Why it matters — A piece of American presidential history tied directly to the country's most consequential public lands legacy will become permanently protected public land in Georgia, accessible to anyone who wants to hunt, fish or walk the same ground that shaped Jimmy Carter.

Reported by theguardian.com, thehill.com, abcnews.com, conservationfund.org, agdaily.com, usatoday.com