This landmark in Plains, Ga., is part of the hallmark of a homespun presidency.
by Mark Silva
Fill 'er up, with Blly Beer.
There's been a certain climate change since Jimmy Carter came to Washington as president, leaving behind a younger brother Billy and a dispensary of hometown wisdom at his gas station in Plains, Ga. But it will cost more than peanuts to preserve the place.
Bllly Carter is gone, but his gas station lives on. And now the old station is poised to join a federal protectorate of historic landmarks.
The House today is weighing plans to roughly double the size of a National Park Service site honoring President Carter, in part by making the Billy Carter Service Station Museum an extension of the presidential historic site in Plains.
As Congressional Quarterly explains it, the plan will add about 30 acres to the current Carter presidential site, at a cost of $17 million over five years. That includes about $10 million for land-buying.
The gas station served as an informal headquarters for the national press during the 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns. Billy Carter died of pancreatic cancer in 1988 at the age of 51. Jimmy Carter's current home, set back from the road with gates and woods, and his modest childhood home near a roadway, already are already part of the site.
Comments
The only problem with Billy's gas station? Because of his brother, Jimma, there wasn't any gas to sell.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | October 26, 2009 3:33 PM
Is that sort of like Bill Clinton's filling station?
Posted by: ornery | October 26, 2009 3:37 PM
I sure am glad the government is rolling in dough so that Obama, Pelosi & Co. and throw away our money on this....
Posted by: NOT approved by the White House | October 26, 2009 3:42 PM
The cost sure sounds a touch high to me but then again maybe it was the result of the hyper inflation that we experienced during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter.
The individual many of us consider to be the worst in my 76 years.
Posted by: Joe Jankovic | October 26, 2009 6:12 PM
Really? No one is interested in the Carter Debacle except for perhaps to learn from this guy on how to NOT be president and how to NOT fail. And who cares about Billy? He was nothing but comic fodder for Johnny Carson and Match Game questions. All this money over a loser president and his drunk, idiot brother?
Posted by: John D, still right, as usual | October 26, 2009 6:27 PM
And the name Monica Lewinsky will forever be immortalized in history books across the nation as belonging to a historic figure of significant historical importance.....
Posted by: a gas station.... | October 26, 2009 7:57 PM