James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Georgia, in 1924 and spent much of his childhood on a farm in the nearby community of Archery. His family grew peanuts and other crops and operated a store in a rural economy structured by Jim Crow segregation. Black tenant farmers and wage laborers supplied essential knowledge and work, while unequal land, education, voting, and economic systems shaped daily life. The preserved farm therefore explains both Carter's close experience of agriculture and the racial order from which his later public commitments developed.

Carter attended Plains High School, graduating in 1941 before entering the United States Naval Academy. After naval service in the submarine program, he returned to Plains in 1953 following his father's death and rebuilt the family peanut business with his wife, Rosalynn. Local civic activity led to the Georgia Senate, the governorship, and a presidential campaign emphasizing competence and ethical reform after Watergate. The couple used the former Plains railroad depot as campaign headquarters in 1976, turning a small freight and passenger building into the operational symbol of an outsider candidacy.

As the thirty-ninth president from 1977 to 1981, Carter brokered the Camp David Accords, established formal diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, advanced energy and conservation policies, and emphasized human rights. Inflation, the Iran hostage crisis, and political conflict contributed to his defeat in 1980. His post-presidential work through the Carter Center focused on elections, disease eradication, conflict mediation, and human rights, while the Carters' volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity became widely recognized. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Congress authorized the national historic site in 1987, and it was redesignated a national historical park in 2021. The park includes Plains High School, which has been rehabilitated as a visitor center and museum; the restored 1888 depot, presented substantially to its 1976 campaign period; and the boyhood farm, where the farmhouse, store, fields, outbuildings, and landscape are maintained and interpreted. Furnishings, exhibits, farm animals, crop demonstrations, and repaired structures support an evocation of the 1930s rather than an untouched household frozen at one date.

Jimmy Carter died in 2024 after the longest post-presidency in United States history, and Rosalynn Carter died in 2023. Their family residence remains subject to security, privacy, and transition arrangements distinct from the established visitor sites, so current access should be checked rather than assumed. The National Park Service generally offers the main park units without an entrance fee. The park's strength lies in linking a very local landscape to national and international service while addressing agricultural labor, segregation, faith, family partnership, political achievement, controversy, and the deliberate return to Plains after public office.