FDR’s “Little White House,” Callaway Gardens, and a drive-through animal park make this part of the state a must-see.
By Pam Windsor
February 2016
Ninety minutes or so from Perry, Georgia, where FMCA members will soon meet for the association’s 93rd Family Reunion and Motorhome Showcase, March 17-20, is a part of Georgia that no history buff or nature lover should miss. It’s filled with American heritage, the great outdoors, and nature’s wildest creatures.
Make your first stop in Warm Springs, which is closest to Perry. Some people there have fond memories of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. More than 70 years after his death, they still talk about him often. Some residents, among them Carolyn Hendricks, remember seeing him out and about during the 1930s and ‘40s when he stayed in Warm Springs.
“He would drive right by my house every time he went to the drugstore,” she recalled. “The kids would line up outside and wave at him when he came by.”
Ms. Hendricks was a young girl in those days. Today she works part-time at the Little White House Historic Site, Roosevelt’s home in Warm Springs. The home, operated by the state of Georgia, within the Warm Springs Historic District, is a National Historic Landmark.
Roosevelt was born into great wealth and grew up on the family’s estate in Hyde Park, New York. He had already entered politics by 1921, when, at the age of 39, he contracted polio and became paralyzed from the waist down.
A friend from Georgia told him about the rejuvenating mineral-filled spring waters at an area resort, and in 1924 Roosevelt traveled to Warm Springs to see if those waters might help him. He saw improvement and later bought the property, turning it into a place where other polio victims, many of them children, could come and recuperate as well.
Roosevelt also bought farmland there, and in 1932 he built the cottage now called the Little White House. In November of that year, he was elected America’s 32nd president.
During visits to Warm Springs, this man, who had been privileged all of his life, began talking to farmers and regular Americans about the challenges and struggles they faced. He would drive into the yards of local residents in a car with specially designed hand controls. He got to know the residents and understand their problems.
“This is where he became FDR,” noted interpretive ranger David Burke Jr. “He gained contact with people down here that he didn’t have in New York. He saw the lack of electricity, lack of education; he saw rural areas that were foreign to him. And he saw banks closing by the dozens down here in the 1920s, before the Depression hit.”
These experiences helped prepare Roosevelt for some of the crises he faced when he became president in the midst of the Great Depression. During his first 100 days in office, he pushed dozens of new measures through Congress to help stabilize the banking industry, aid in agricultural recovery, and provide jobs for millions of unemployed Americans.
Other programs he would later implement stemmed from his time in Warm Springs. His Rural Electrification Act in 1936, which paved the way to bring electricity to isolated rural areas of the United States, was passed after he saw the struggles of local residents.
Roosevelt would later lead America through World War II, although he would die in April 1945, before the war ended. He was posing for a portrait in Warm Springs when he slumped over in a chair.
“His doctor was summoned and they moved him to his bedroom,” explained interpretive ranger Ashley Aultman. “He died later from a cerebral hemorrhage.”
The next day, as Roosevelt’s body was to be taken to the Warm Springs train station for the journey to Washington, D.C., his wife, Eleanor, asked to make a slight detour.
“She requested that they drive by the polio hospital, so the polio patients could say their final farewells,” Ms. Aultman noted.
Roosevelt’s Little White House remains just as it wasd more than seven decades ago, with the same furnishings. FDR’s chair and card table, and the bed in which he died, are there. A museum in a separate building contains pictures and countless artifacts. It offers a personal, up-close look at a man who didn’t seem so far away from fellow Americans.
Carolyn Hendricks summed up FDR’s Warm Springs, Georgia, relationship: “He loved this place, and we loved him.”
Flowers And Butterflies
It’s a shame that FDR didn’t live long enough to see a wonderful garden bloom less than 15 miles west of Warm Springs. The small town of Pine Mountain is home to Callaway Gardens, which opened in 1952. Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians, the gardens were built by founders Cason and Virginia Callaway, who had discovered the beauty of the area in the 1930s and began working to develop the property.
Part of the grounds are occupied by a 2,500-acre woodland garden that can be explored via foot trails as well as by car, bicycle, and golf cart. Another portion has been developed into a camp for outdoor family fun called Summer Family Adventure. Callaway offers ziplining and treetop obstacle courses, the world’s largest inland man-made beach, and a variety of overnight lodging options. A chapel, a log cabin, and a butterfly center also vie for your time. Special events throughout the year focus on food and wine, to sports (polo and waterskiing included), gardening, and live music concerts.
If you do visit here in a motorhome, daytime parking is available, but touring needs to be done in a towed car.
The Callaway Discovery Center acts as a welcome center of sorts. It has a history wall; an auditorium where a video called “The Story of Callaway Gardens” is shown; an education wing; a gift shop; and a café. An amphitheater outside is home to a show about birds of prey — falcons, hawks, owls, and vultures.
The main road through Callaway Gardens, known as Five-Mile Scenic Drive, takes visitors past miniature gardens, trails, and attractions. Cyclists can rent bikes or bring their own and make their way through 10 miles of bike trails. Golf carts are also available for rent (if you own one, you are not permitted to use it).
The view is spectacular year-round as the seasons and colors change. While different flowers bloom at different times, visitors in the spring are assured of an amazing display of color during azalea season. More than 700 varieties are cultivated here, making it the largest azalea garden in the world.
They’re not easy to catch on camera, but more than 1,000 tropical butterflies move freely through a rainforest-type environment in the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center. Tropical butterflies live on the inside of the facility, and native butterflies thrive in gardens on the outside.
Cecil Day was the founder of the Days Inn Hotel chain. His wife had the butterfly center built in his honor in 1988.
While most people think that Callaway Gardens might be best to visit in warm weather, this resort has celebrations through all seasons. Easter, Memorial Day weekend, and the Fourth of July are commemorated; plus, the facility hosts a hot-air balloon festival (over Labor Day weekend), a steeplechase race in November, and a holiday light and sound show that begins in mid-November.
Last but certainly not least (to golfers, at least) is the fact that Callaway Gardens also offers 36 holes of championship golf on two courses.
A Wild Touch And More
Visitors looking for other Pine Mountain attractions will want to take note of the row of antiques and specialty shops along Main Street. Local shopkeepers pride themselves in offering items that aren’t easily found anywhere else. The owners of one store, Sweet Home Antiques, travel to England twice a year on buying trips.
Another treat a few miles from Callaway Gardens is the drive-through Wild Animal Safari. This 250-acre outdoor park features hundreds of exotic animals from all over the world. In search of food, they walk right up to the vehicles that are passing through. The drive is 5 miles long.
The park is home to about 400 animals, including giraffes, zebras, bison, water buffalo, and others. And everything peacefully coexists. You can feed just about all the animals by hand. Bags of food are sold inside.
The park allows visitors to drive their own cars through the park, although rental vehicles are also available. (Motorhomes are not permitted.)
Don’t miss the Walk-About, either. Smaller, friendlier animals such as lemurs, alpacas, and peacocks hang out in this area. You can stroll around and pet some of these critters. A café and a gift shop also are on-site.
Wild Animal Safari is open daily except Christmas Day.
Like Perry, Warm Springs and Pine Mountain prove that sometimes it’s the small towns that have some of the greatest treasures. Be sure to do your own digging!
If You Go
Roosevelt’s Little White House Historic Site
401 Little White House Road
Warm Springs, GA 31830
(706) 655-5870
www.gastateparks.org/LittleWhiteHouse
The site includes a museum with a video, the house itself, the Historic Pools Museum, a memorial fountain, and an exhibit with FDR’s unfinished portrait.
Callaway Gardens
17800 U.S. 27
Pine Mountain, GA 31822
(800) 852-3810
Daytime (only) parking for motorhomes is available.
Wild Animal Safari
1300 Oak Grove Road
Pine Mountain, GA 31822
(800) 367-2751
(706) 663-8744
Area Campgrounds
The following may not be a complete list, so please check your campground directory or the RV Marketplace, published in the January and June issues of FMC and at FMCA.com.
Blanton Creek Campground
(A Georgia Power Company facility)
6111 Lickskillet Road
Hamilton, GA 31811
(706) 643-7737
FD Roosevelt State Park
2970 State Route 190
Pine Mountain, GA 31822
(800) 864-7275 — Reservations
(706) 663-4858
Pine Mountain RV Resort, C6877*
8804 Hamilton Road, U.S. 27
Pine Mountain, GA 31822
(866) 929-9586
(706) 663-4329
* FMCA Commercial Member