Preserving FDR’s Legacy in Georgia

The Friends of the Little White House, along with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, are undertaking a major campaign to restore and preserve the historic swimming pool complex that originally brought President Roosevelt to the area.

But we need your help.

A President In our Midst (and in our Pools)

It has now been 100 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first accepted the invitation of George Foster Peabody to come to Warm Springs to experience the potential healing properties of the waters here. Having been stricken by the scourge of infantile paralysis, more widely known as polio, he may never have gone on to become the United States’ 32nd president had he not come to our area. While there were many factors that led the President to become a Georgian and to make this his part-time home, it was the swimming pools of the Meriwether Inn and his experience in this community that reinvigorated his life and helped him once again be capable of serving the American people in peace and, eventually, in war.

The Scourge of Polio

Infantile paralysis, better known as polio, was amongst the most impactful and devastating diseases of the twentieth century, afflicting hundreds of thousands of people every year. Causing permanent paralysis of body parts of an infected person - very often children - it can ultimately cause death by immbolizing the patient’s ability to breathe.

President Roosevelt first came to Georgia at a dark moment in his life, having lost the use of his legs to polio. After hearing that the temperate waters of Warm Springs could potentially heal his paralysis, he embraced the soothing waters of the community and, in the 1930s, purchased land to construct both a home for himself and what would become the rehabilitative pools complex and the Roosevelt Institute.

Polio, COVID-19, and Modern Rehab

The pools complex and the Roosevelt Institute were both constructed at a critical juncture in modern medicine's fight against the ravaging effects of polio prior to the development of the polio vaccines. As we are now emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pools complex and the associated museum are a reminder of the importance of modern medical research in combating epidemic and pandemic disease, and how the development of vaccines are a critical tool in improving (and saving!) the lives of people around the world. The new museum that was recently redeveloped at the pools complex details all of this directly. It is a great opportunity for our visitors to learn more about the polio epidemic and the role our region played in the fight against infantile paralysis.

Renovating, Reconstructing, and Preserving our History

There are significant issues with the pools complex owing to construction techniques that were used to build the current complex in the 1930s, which were not designed to withstand the underlying erosion of the site over time. The pools were cosmetically restored in the 1990s, but the amount of state funding available for the Little White House and the pools complex has not been adequate to address the underlying structural issues affecting the pools. Thus, the Friends group has taken leadership in raising more than $6 million to do more than just cosmetically repair the pools. We want to tackle those underlying structural issues to ensure that the site is sustainably protected for generations, while at the same time, aesthetically restoring it to what it would have looked like in the 1930s when President Roosevelt was here using them.

But it is vital that we intervene and save the pools now.

As you will see when you visit the historic pool complex today, however, its present condition is not one that demonstrates their importance to American history. Nor would their current state have served as an attractive prospect for the future president who hoped to recover from the crippling effects of polio.

The Friends of the Little White House, in working with the Georgia state legislature, the Department of Natural Resources, local community leaders, and visitors like you, are in the middle of an ambitious fundraising campaign to preserve the pools and restore them to the condition that FDR would have used in 1924. The need is critical.

With your donation, the Friends can ensure that the pool complex is stabilized and preserved, with its pavilion reconstructed for future generations. We need to protect the important legacy and memory of the president and the successes of the fight against polio. With your contribution, we can do it.

Please consider making a donation by speaking to a ranger during your visit or by donating online by clicking here.