Carter Family Land Acquired for Conservation, With a Legacy Along the Chattahoochee

The Conservation Fund has acquired 2,458 acres near Plains, including Jimmy Carter’s family farmland, for a project that would expand southwest Georgia’s Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area to nearly 7,000 acres.

The nonprofit expects hunting, fishing and other public recreation to begin as early as 2027, ahead of a planned transfer to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2028. The purchase was announced Nov. 9; the new land is not yet an open public recreation destination.

For North Atlanta, the acquisition has a connection closer to home: Carter signed the law creating the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area on Aug. 15, 1978. The river park preserves a 48-mile stretch of the Chattahoochee, with places to hike, paddle and fish amid metropolitan Atlanta.

That protection grew out of years of local organizing. A small group of river advocates worked through the 1970s to preserve the corridor, a history the National Park Service traces to the park’s founding. Carter’s signature turned that effort into a national recreation area.

The newly acquired property lies in a different part of Georgia. It adjoins Lanahassee Creek WMA near Preston, which currently covers 4,420 acres and offers hunting, hiking, primitive camping and wildlife viewing.

The Conservation Fund’s plan would extend habitat for longleaf pine and gopher tortoises. Carter retained mature longleaf trees and requested new plantings on the family property late in his life.

The acreage includes both Carter family land and a separate neighboring tract, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. It is distinct from the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home preserved by the National Park Service.

Public access and state ownership remain future steps. For now, the acquisition places the land with the nonprofit while it prepares for the property’s next use as part of the wildlife management area.

Photo: President Jimmy Carter’s official portrait, May 1, 1978. White House Staff Photographers / National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.