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 ...

=================================

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.

First off we now live in an age where the occupant of the White House is considered to be a personage of royal or even king-like stature. This is a far cry from the way the Founding Fathers intended this office to be occupied.

I mean really now folks, do we actually need national parks for the likes of Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter or that low-down scoundrel Lyndon Johnson? Apparently the powers that be on the banks of the Potomac are ever ready to honor these hack politicians from the past with pork laden parks, that very few Americans actually visit, and then greedily clamber for more (witness Saxby Chambliss trying to make Plains a NHP) once they are so designated. In fact the two most architecturally and historically significant presidential homes aren't even in the NPS, Mt. Vernon and Monticello. Thank goodness for that because the tender loving care they receive is not available through the Congressional budgeting process. Besides, these two men would have never considered the expense to the taxpayer as being in any way justified.

As long as our society continues to consider these men as demigods the government that spawned and sustained them will continue to maintain shrines in their honor for posterity's sake. Is the Bill and Hillary NHP all that far behind? (Will the Monica dress be on display? Or the lamp that Hillary threw at Bubba upon learning of his betrayal?) Is it just a matter of time before the federal government buys Shrub's ranch in Crawford? (With his pruning shears and Yale-era coke spoon in a glass case.)

In fact Billy's gas station is not all that strange to include when you consider the veneration heaped upon this rogues gallery of scalawags and scoundrels we call the Presidents of these United States.

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....

I think it's a combination of the two. "Society" wouldn't buy into this garbage if there wasn't a predisposition toward executive worship.

We overthrew the British in part to be free from a distant, single authority figure, but yet we now spend more per year to maintain the office of the president than the British spend on the monarchy. While president, Jefferson forbade his image on coins; now he and others' faces are all over coins and etched larger than life in to sacred Sioux stone in the Black Hills. The populace is more concerned about Michelle Obama's wardrobe (oh my god, is it J. Crew or an expensive designer label?) and the President's dating schedule than auditing the Federal Reserve or preserving national parks. The presidency has been elevated to celebrity status at incalculable expense to our republican form of government.

This reminds me of my time spent in a former Soviet satellite country in Eastern Europe. To keep people employed, the central economic planners ordered literally thousands of monuments built. Now, they lie in ruins, a testament to the folly of state worship.

But at least the Soviets didn't memorialize a gas station. Amerika is entering uncharted waters on its journey to the bottom of the ocean.

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.

There's a pretty cool historic gas station from 1928 in Kings Canyon National Park. It claims to be the oldest gravity pump in the US. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3V5B (with photos).

We are most assuredly now on a very steep slippery hill, headed to the ravine below.

One of the legislative missions of the Jimmy Carter site is the interpretation of Plains as a small, southern, 20th century town because the Carter story is imbedded there. These late 19th-early 20th century railroad towns are significant in our settlement history, and I think there is a place for an example in the NPS. There aren't many of them left that have an association that can keep them encapsulated from development or just crumbling away. Given the mandate, the inclusion of the gas station as a vital focal point of the town's social life and automobile transportation history makes sense. Others, like the school and railroad depot were included in the original legislation, while another focal point, the post office, was already under federal ownership and "protection." Furthermore, the gas station's function and appearance have been an issue for many years. This piece of legislation can keep it from being a perpetual eyesore.

That said, I agree with many of the comments that the site doesn't need to grow into a historical park and the preservation of every president's story within the NPS is a bit ridiculous. Furthermore, I'm no fan of Carter's politics, but to be consistent with the original legislative intent, I do believe the acquisition of this historic structure makes sense.

I beg to differ. The country is well stocked with these types of towns. All you have to do is casually drive the blue highways of the lower 48 and it isn't very long before you stumble into one. I have been visiting and documenting these towns for many years and they surely don't need Washington bureaucrats to "keep them encapsulated from development or just crumbling away."

That part of Georgia (I know it quite well) is by no means bereft of these types of towns, nor is nearby northern Florida, southern Alabama or for that matter all of Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Tennessee, Montana, Oklahoma or most all of Texas east of the Pecos. These examples of our "settlement history" are still most assuredly with us and not about to vanish any time soon.

Some of my favorites: Colby, Kansas; Bell Buckle, Tennessee; Quanah, Texas; Chatsworth, Georgia; Monticello, Florida; Milford, Utah; Clifton Forge, Virginia and Bridgeville, Delaware.

I question two gravity gas pumps as being a "Gas Station" in "Kings Canyon National Park". Billy Carters "Gas Station" in Plains, Ga, is presently a "Museum" which makes more sense in a NP. Also you do not make mention of the Carters world famous "Worm Farm" that used to be advertised in "Popular Mechanics" back in the '50's and 60's. I've been through "Plains, Ga" If you blink, you might miss it. Check it out on "Google Earth".

There seems to be several "gas stations" within the NPS. Check out the following:

Semper Fi
OMAR

Doc, I'll willingly acknowledge that there are more than a few gas pumps scattered throughout the national parks. You can find them in Yellowstone and Yosemite, just to name two. I just can't think of any "gas stations" lying outside a unit of the National Park System that was specifically integrated into a park. It'd make more sense if Jimmy once owned the station, pumped gas, and checked your oil.

Anonymous is right, the old Magnolia Mobil gas station is part of Little Rock Central High School NHS. I assume it was acquired with the rest of the land, but if it wasn't, I believe it would have been a candidate for later inclusion. It is directly across the street from both the new visitor and the high school and, if I recall correctly, served as the central hub for reporter during the events. It's actually a great example of a gas station that plays a meaningful and appropriate role in the National Park System.