Even Without Its Most Famous Son, Carter’s Hometown Remains a Destination

Plains has no major hotel, a single small gas station and only a couple of restaurants, neither of which is usually open for dinner. Still, for the longest time, the tiny town had something that no other place in Georgia did: Jimmy Carter making it his home.

Especially as Mr. Carter withdrew from public life, the town has had years to prepare for life after him. But now that he is gone — Mr. Carter died last month at 100 — the town is hoping that its prospects as a tourism destination have not been buried along with its most famous son.

The optimism in Plains is grounded in the experience of other small towns known almost exclusively for their ties to a former president, which history has shown can still attract a crowd decades or centuries after that president has died.

Hyde Park, which borders the Hudson River in New York, has a steady stream of tourists coming to visit Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential library, home and gravesite. Tampico, Ill., has erected signs advertising itself as the birthplace of Ronald Reagan, trying to encourage people to take a brief detour on the way to Chicago to see the apartment where Mr. Reagan was born.

These towns and others are banking on the country’s enduring fascination with its presidents. particularly among the collection of history buffs who find the insights they can offer irresistible.

“I recognized that there was something about getting to experience what they experienced and getting to see the world through their eyes,” said Joe Faykosh, a history professor at Central Arizona College.