Getting the flavor of...Roosevelt’s Georgia retreat

Roosevelt’s Georgia retreat

Franklin Roosevelt came to western Georgia in 1924 “for the water, but fell in love with the land,” said Joe Samuel Starnes in The New York Times. He’d hoped the state’s mineral-rich springs would help alleviate his paralysis. Over two years, the wealthy New Yorker acquired 1,200 acres, founded the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute, and created a refuge that would become known as the “Little White House” after his election to the presidency. A “rural and relaxing place,” these “piney woods”—known today as F.D. Roosevelt State Park—stretch west from Warm Springs to Pine Mountain. The latter is home to Callaway Gardens, a 13,000-acre resort speckled with 13 lakes, two golf courses, a tennis center, a spa, and gardens lush with “blooming azaleas and dogwoods.” Near Pine Mountain’s peak sits a bronze statue of FDR in leg braces. He gazes at the “wide, green valley” of Dowdell’s Knob, a “favorite spot,” where he spent one of his last days.

Contact: Gastateparks.org/info/fdr/

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Wyoming’s Western grit

Sheridan, Wyo., hasn’t changed much since it was founded in 1882, said Andrea Minarcek in National Geographic Adventure. Situated on the Bloody Bozeman Trail, a “mere blip in the open grasslands beneath the Bighorn Mountains,” the town briefly boomed during America’s turbulent 19th-century expansion, as prospectors hustled north to the rich gold mines of Montana. With a style “more cow town than kitsch,” Sheridan is “a lot like Jackson Hole was 50 years ago.” That’s its charm. Still the state’s best destination for adventurers, Sheridan is a perfect home base for exploring the surrounding countryside. “Cowboy up” for a horseback ride through Bighorn National Forest,” or spelunk the caves of Tongue River Canyon, where Crazy Horse set up his final camp. Then “wind down with a ‘ditch’ (Plains-speak for whiskey and water)” and a plateful of prime rib at 1893 Grille & Spirits, a National Historic Landmark and a favorite of Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt.

Contact: Sheridanwyoming.org/index.php