A Virginia property once owned by George Washington and in 1971 the subject of a purchasing scheme hatched by a Chattanooga state legislator is still a political football 50 years later.
River Farm, one of four or five (depending on the source) farms once owned by the nation’s first president, was taken off the market earlier this month after bids from a conservation trust and from a Georgia businessman and former Trump administration appointee were rebuffed.
The 27-acre farm’s owners, the American Horticultural Society, said the property is no longer for sale. The tract would continue to be the organization’s national headquarters and would “remain a priceless asset for the general public and future generations to enjoy.”
The property was purchased for $800,000 by the organization in 1973 with generous help from philanthropist Enid Annenberg Haupt.
It was two years before her purchase, though, when Tennessee state Rep. David Copeland, R-Chattanooga, got involved. The legislator learned the land, outbuildings and other attributes of the property were for sale, and the only bidder was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the communist USSR), which had offered $900,000.