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Photo Diary: FDR Little White House, Warm Springs GA [1]

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Date: 2022-11-17

President Franklin D Roosevelt visited Warm Springs GA many times during his time in office. He died here on his final visit in April 1945. The “Little White House” is now a state historical park.

For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. I am currently wintering in Florida.

The 88-degree natural warm springs in central Georgia had always been a tourist attraction. People from Savannah and Atlanta would often travel there during the summer to escape the yellow fever season, and to soak in the waters, which were said to have natural curative powers.

By the 1920s, however, the automobile was beginning to replace the train as the public's primary mode of transportation, and the Atlantic beaches were becoming more popular as vacation getaways. The town of Warm Springs and its resort health spas began to decline.

In 1923, New York businessman George Foster Peabody bought the failing Meriwether Inn health spa. There, he heard the story of a young polio victim who had soaked in the warm spring and had reportedly gained improvement. At this time, polio was a much-feared scourge that killed thousands each year and often left survivors paralyzed.

One such victim was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a distant cousin of President Teddy Roosevelt who had formerly served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and had been a Vice Presidential candidate before being paralyzed from the waist down by an attack of polio. When Peabody told Roosevelt about the spring water in Georgia and its presumed healing powers, Roosevelt decided to give it a try.

Arriving in October 1924, Roosevelt found that his paralyzed body was able to move freely in the buoyant water, and he soon took to enjoying games of "water polo" with the local children.

After that, Roosevelt returned to Warm Springs as often as he could. Because FDR was a prominent figure in New York society, his trips were covered extensively in the press, and this attracted more and more people to the tiny Georgia town, many of them hoping for a miracle cure for their polio.

In 1926, Roosevelt bought the resort from Peabody and transformed it into the nation's only hospital that was devoted entirely to polio patients. The hospital was run by a nonprofit organization established by FDR called the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. This would later change its name to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, but would become better known as "The March of Dimes". The foundation raised money and awareness for research into treatments for polio victims and for vaccines to stop the disease.

Although Roosevelt would never regain the use of his legs, his involvement with the Foundation led to a renewed interest in politics, and when his friend Al Smith left his position as Governor of New York to run for President (unsuccessfully) in 1928, Smith persuaded Roosevelt to run for his Governor's seat. FDR won by a narrow margin, then won re-election again in 1930.

When the stock market crashed in 1929 and sparked off the Great Depression, Governor Roosevelt responded with a full-on government effort to help those who needed it. There were statewide programs to provide financial aid for the poor, to protect bank savings, and to provide jobs through public works. In 1932, believing that his aid programs could also help the nation as a whole, Roosevelt joined the race for President and immediately became the frontrunner, winning handily.

As Governor, Roosevelt had only been able to make occasional visits to Warm Springs. But now, as President-Elect, he planned to spend as much time there as he could, and he set about building a cottage at the top of the hill next to the Foundation's hospital.

The cottage consisted of a six-room one-floor house with a guest house and servants quarters. There was a room for FDR's secretary, and a second bedroom for Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt (the Roosevelts put on a public face, but in private their relationship was a shaky one). The cottage quickly became known as "The Little White House". After his first visit, Roosevelt later recalled that he had been kept up all night by the sound of squirrels running across the roof.

Over the four terms of his Presidency, FDR visited the Little White House sixteen times. After the US entered World War Two in December 1941, a unit of Marines was assigned to provide security, along with the Secret Service, every time the President was there.

In April 1945, after returning from the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin, Roosevelt once again made the retreat to Warm Springs, where he planned to work on the speech he would give to the opening session of the United Nations after the war came to an end.

On the afternoon of April 12, he was sitting in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace at the Little White House, posing for a portrait by the noted artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff, when he suddenly remarked, "I have a terrible headache", and slumped in his chair. Suffering from a cerebral hemorrhage, he was taken to the bedroom across the hall, where he died two hours later.

Roosevelt had served longer in office than any other US President, and his sudden death, coming just months before the end of the war, was a shock to the country.

After FDR's death, the Warm Springs Foundation gifted the Little White House to the state of Georgia, which opened it to the public as a museum memorial in 1948. Today, the property is run by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, State Parks, and Historic Sites. All of the original furnishings remain in place, and the Little White House is still in the same state it was in during Roosevelt's last visit.

There is a Visitors Center and a museum which houses some artifacts and mementos of FDR, including two of his automobiles which had been specially modified to be operated by hand controls. The Little White House itself is open for tours.

Some photos from a visit.

Visitors Center

The museum

FDR’s 1938 Ford Sedan

One of FDR’s wheelchairs and a set of leg braces

The walkway is lined with flags and stones from each of the 48 states

One of the State Stones

Guest House

Inside the Guest house

Servant’s Quarters

Inside the Servant’s Quarters

The Little White House

The back porch

The kitchen

The dining room

Roosevelt’s desk

The leather chair in front of the fireplace

Roosevelt’s bedroom

The flag that was flying over the Little White House on April 12, 1945

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