Warm Springs Historic District

On the north slope of Pine Mountain in Warm Springs, Georgia, this district gathers the Warm Springs Foundation hospital complex, a golf course, private cottages and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Little White House. Springs flowing at a constant 89 degrees drew visitors long before the Foundation, first as a refuge for Native American warriors and later as a nineteenth-century resort. Roosevelt came in 1924 after contracting polio and founded the Foundation in 1927. Architect Henry Toombs designed most of the buildings over about forty years, including Georgia Hall, a chapel, and a quadrangle of connected structures around an open courtyard. Roosevelt's six-room clapboard cottage was completed in 1932. There, ideas for the National Bank Holiday and the Rural Electrification Administration took shape, and Roosevelt died there on April 12, 1945. The district is recognized for polio treatment, Roosevelt's political legacy and Toombs's architecture.