PLAINS

town, Sumter county, southwest-central Georgia, U.S., 10 miles (16 km) west-southwest of Americus. A post office was established there in 1839, and when the railroad was built in 1885 several local settlements, including Magnolia Springs (or Village) and the Plains of Dura (named for the biblical plain near Babylon), regrouped to form Plains, which was incorporated in 1896. The town became a tourist attraction in the late 1970s as the hometown of Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States. Pop. (1990) 716.