Is this how low the bar has dropped for inclusion into the National Park System? Is it really so low that a gas station once owned by the beer-swilling brother of President Jimmy Carter should be managed as part of a national historical park by the National Park Service?
Sure, sure, sure, President Carter was the only Georgian to reach the White House as resident, and Billy Carter certainly attracted more than his share of notoriety -- Billy Beer, anyone? But why oh why would anyone want to include Billy's gas station at 216 West Church Street in the heart of downtown Plains, Georgia (Pop. 635) in a national historical park honoring President Carter?
Oh, that's right. While the NPS currently oversees the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, pending legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., and U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., would transform the "historic site" into a national "historical park." By comparison, Valley Forge is also a national historical park, one without an official gas station to the best of my recollection.
But then, perhaps a gas station does fit well with this site. Already it includes President Carter's boyhood farm, where you can still pick peanuts; his old high school, which is now the historic site's visitor center, and; the old Plains Train Depot that the former president utilized as campaign headquarters in 1976.
The pending legislation also calls for a house, once considered to be haunted, that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter lived in after he was discharged from the Navy, and the state of Georgia's Visitor Information Center on the edge of town, to be added to the proposed historical park.
Comments
How else can they comment on the energy crisis that raged during Carter's term? Maybe they can snake a line of late 60's/early 70's Chryslers around the block to show what a gas line was ...
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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com
Not the only historical gas station in the parks. Another one that comes to mind is the first VC at Little Rock Central High School at Magnolia station as I recall. Still part of the park property.
Sorry, Anonymous, can't find any mention of a gas station affiliated with Little Rock Central. Can you provide a link?
While there are many active gas stations located in and around national parks, I can't think of any defunct stations that are actually part of a park, nor any proposed to be part of a park because they were operated by a sibling of a president.
As an aside, I'm pretty sure that historic gas stations are included among the many cultural artifacts preserved in connection with the NPS-administered Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program. If you are keenly interested in historic gas stations, you should be sure to read John Jakle's The Gas Station in America (1994), Tim Russell's Fill 'er Up!: The Great American Gas Station (2007), and Motoring: The Highway Experience in America (2008) by John Jakle and Keith Sculle.
I'm not sold that society has lifted these men up onto statues and so Congress feels indebted to honor them with NPS units. Rather, I think it's simply politicians trying to bring home the bacon so they can get re-elected.
Perhaps the time has come for an apolitical commission to hold court -- with the final say -- whenever a congressperson comes calling with legislation to add to the park system....
Frankly, I'm amazed that some of our more recent presidents are willing to put up with this kind of thing. I'm no fan of President Carter, but surely even he doesn't think his life should be memorialized while he's still alive. I can embrace the idea that it's worth modestly preserving a slice of rural Georgia life, because of its connection to a president--it's meaningless now, but we might be very grateful for it in 100 years. But have the decency to run it with his presidential library, or through a private foundation, until the man is actually dead.
Likewise with the absurd "William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site." Birthplace shrines (and he wasn't even born there--just lived there until he was 4) are suitable only for the greats and, Washington aside, you can't be one of the greats while you're still alive. A birthplace home dedicated to Bill Clinton is like Rubens' Apotheosis of James I on the ceiling of the Banqueting House in Whitehall--nice try, but you're not fooling anyone.
Kurt, you're half right. Politicians are bringing home the bacon, and we all know that NPS sites draw tourist dollars at little or no expense to the local economy. But there's also the element of shaping public history. They are a hagiographical effort, aimed at elevating the historical stature of their honorees. But by elevating so crass a structure as Billy Carter's gas station, we dull that particular instrument of public history. A particular Warhol quote comes to mind...
Bob: There's a decommissioned historic gas station in the historic district of Longmire, at Mount Rainier. However the one belonging to Billy Carter is just... embarrassing.
Frank C: Jefferson may have forbidden his image on coins, but he spread it all over the West on medals carried by Lewis and Clark.
The very notion of a political body, developing an apolitical group is insane. Everything, everywhere is politics. It is certainly more magnified in the government, but it is everywhere. How long would it be before one of the NPS commissioners were to be appointed by a president because of his political donations? Who's kind ends up running a national park, with no qualifications, simply due to who his daddy or mommy knows?
There certainly are no rules for designations, and as an example of how hard it would be to change the existing parks, I would be upset if you took the National Park designation off of my beloved Cuyahoga Valley N.P. (yea, I agree it is kinda weak, but hey it's mine). Even if there was as system that would be no assurance. I am interested in roads also (a little more exciting than paint drying, but I find it interesting). A congressperson from PA, I don't want to blame the wrong one, decided that his area needed a new interstate. Maybe it did, I don't know, but there is a system for numbering interstates. They start low in the west and end at higher numbers in the east. He however wanted it to be I-99. So he had the number designated into the law. So it goes I-79, I-99, I-81, I-83 and then I-95. May not seem like a big deal, but to a road fan, it is as vulgar as a national designation on a gas station (or a National Park designation on the Cuyahoga Valley).
If this was a National Park site, I can't imagine stopping to see it unless I was in the area and out of gas. No way anybody should make this happen. Put a Billy Beer and a picture in Carter's Library and call it Good. Thanks for the story though, it is great fodder. Kurt, I always enjoy your articles.