WEST FRANKFORT, Ill. (WSIL) -- The city of West Frankfort hosted two presidential visits including one by Jimmy Carter in the 1980 campaign trail.
Mayor Tom Jordan, then a lieutenant for the city's fire department, remembers being part of meetings with Secret Service agents preparing for the president's visit.
On October 13, 22 days before the election between Carter and Ronald Reagan, Secret Service assigned firefighters to work the rope line and keep people off the street while the president's car passed.
Jordan says Carter got out of his car near the 100 block of East Main Street and walked on the street and passed the post office. Jordan remembers one man who wanted to get in the street to meet Carter.
"I called Secret Service then I spoke to him directly and let him know that he wouldn't take another breath if he walked out into the street," Jordan said. "He wanted to present him with a pocket knife."
Carter was then escorted to Old Ben Coal Mine 25, which employed around 400 people, before it closed in 1994. Carter spoke to miners and employees about increased coal production at the time.
Matt Lees, political science professor at Southeastern Illinois College, says Carter's visit speaks to Illinois' reputation as a swing state during election season.
, according to Lees, was meant to soften the blow of an oil crisis caused by the Iranian Revolution.
"He viewed coal as a way of lessening the impact of that OPEC embargo that was just ravaging the U.S. economy," Lees said. "Jimmy Carter's position to coal was a lot closer to Donald Trump's postion... than Joe Biden's."
Carter ultimately lost to Reagan in a landslide but as Lees points out Carter 'didn't ride into the sunset'. Carter continued work to broker peace and to aid humanity's progress.
Those efforts earned Carter the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Three other presidents earned the honor including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama.
Carter is the only president to earn the Nobel Peace Prize after his term. To Jordan, Carter's life, not his politics, is inspiring.
"He did a lot with Habitat for Humanity. He's worked with elections to make sure elections are free and I think that desire for doing the right thing it bore out in his life and you can see that," Jordan said.
Carter is one of two presidents who visited West Frankfort. The other was Harry Truman back in 1948.