Americus, Georgia, is a small city southwest of Macon, about ten miles east of Plains, home to former president Jimmy Carter. It is much bigger than Plains, and is home to several important entities.

Georgia Southwestern University is probably the most important, economically; but Habitat for Humanity is also headquartered there, and is well-known for building houses for folks who would otherwise be hardpressed to be able to own their own home. Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter are well-known for partnering with Habitat, and participating in building houses with them.

Americus is also home to Café Campesino, a coffee roastery which specializes in partnering directly with small farmers in Central and South America with what is called “Fair Trade Coffee.” I have been buying their coffees ever since I found them at “Turnip Greens Country Market” in Darien, some years ago (now known as “The Coastal Market”). They are quite good.

Two other local institutions of some fame are across the main downtown street from each other: the Rylander Theatre and the Windsor Hotel, a gorgeous old Victorian hotel that would have been quite grand in its time. The Rylander Theatre is somewhat similar to Savannah’s Lucas Theatre, only a bit more ornate.

Both the Rylander and the Windsor fell into disuse, years ago, and both were empty for some 20 or so years, before local leaders decided they were too important to lose, so managed to come up with supporters and funds to rehabilitate them and return them to modern use. The Rylander once was home to traveling vaudeville shows, I believe, then became a movie theatre. In its reincarnated state it is home to a local community theatre group, and also used by the Drama Dept. folks at GA Southwestern University.

Jimmy Carter once wrote of hopping a slow-moving freight train, when he was a little boy, with a black playmate on Saturday mornings after chores, in order to get to Americus and watch Westerns – for a dime, when he had the money. Then they would hop a return freight train to get home.

“If our parents ever found out we did that, they would have killed us!” he recalled with a laugh and that trademark grin.

My wife and I first traveled to Americus about 20 years ago for the wedding of a college roommate of hers, who was by then head of the Biology Dept. at GA Southwestern University, and was marrying the fellow who was the Tech Director for the Drama Dept. there. They got married in the Rylander and had their reception there. We stayed in the historic, newly-renovated Windsor hotel across the street.

The only issue we had that trip was, our room was on the western side of the building and right across the street from a country-western bar, whose AC must not have been working properly, as they had the front door propped open all night, until they closed at 2 AM. The noise from that bar was so loud it kept us from getting any sleep; and when I called the front desk to complain, they said there was nothing they could do about it, as Americus did not have a “noise ordinance.”

The things one learns by traveling!

But, we remembered that, some ten years later, when we had to make a return trip to attend Ray’s funeral (also at the Rylander), and got a room on the opposite side of the building, that time!

We have also visited the Jimmy Carter Historic Site in nearby Plains, on another trip, and found that it was simply the old Plains High School that Jimmy and Rosalyn attended, many years earlier. It had largely been preserved as it would have been then, with the addition of Carter memorabilia. It reminded me of my two years at Savannah High School – old steam radiators for heat in the winter, and no air conditioning! Today’s kids are very lucky to have more “modern” conveniences.

We were very pleased to see that Americus managed to save those two historic landmarks, and glad we got to see them for ourselves. They would have been very important to the local economy, when they were first built.

Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He and his wife live in eastern Liberty County, and are long-time Rotarians. He writes on a variety of topics, and may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo.com.