Horry County residents from the early part of the last century were a hardworking bunch. That’s not meant to disparage present-day laborers, or to suggest that we work any less hard…well, actually we probably do, at least most of us. Just imagine waking up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. every day to feed the animals, hand-prune tobacco plants, pick the beans and hitch up the mules to strip sugar cane for five or six hours straight or plow the fields, and that’s just some of the chores required of the first part of your day.
You might get a break for lunch and rest during the hottest part of the afternoon, but then you’re back at it until the sun goes down, then supper comes. After eating and washing up, exhausted you crawl into bed. In the winter you’re still taking care of the animals—chickens, horses, pigs, mules, and other livestock—and you’re felling trees and chopping wood to keep your modest home warm. And there are winter crops as well. Get the picture? If not, this not-so-distant history awaits you at the L.W. Paul Living History Farm in Conway. The farm and museum both will give you a new appreciation for the fascinating history, lifestyle, work, and sacrifice of the generations that preceded us.
L.W. Paul Farm site manager Tyler McCracken is a lifelong Horry County resident, as is a generation before him. A 2019 graduate of Coastal Carolina University, McCracken holds a history degree and drives to work at the farm from Murrells Inlet five days per week, Tues – Sat. He first came to the Farm as a volunteer, then obtained a position as an agricultural interpreter, and earlier this year was promoted to his current position. While at work he dresses the part and performs many of the chores in the same way farmers may have done a century earlier, all for the benefit of the public and to help preserve an important part of our history.
We recently spent some time with McCracken to see firsthand just what his day is like, at least at a late summer visit when the stalks of corn towered over his head, and to learn more about the fascinating chronicle of Horry County and its agrarian roots.
“I hit the ground running when I get in,” says McCracken, a little shy, soft spoken, full of ‘yes-sirs’ and Southern manners. “I drop my stuff off, go out and start unlocking the outbuildings and feeding the animals. My daily schedule changes all the time. There’s always something to do, and it's different each day, each season.”
McCracken is very knowledgeable about the period the Farm is set to represent, the type of work required then (and now), the farm implements used, typical livestock, seasonal crops and other homestead/farming chores of the era. It seems like the 28-year-old has the stamina needed to get through a formidable workday.
The Farm, on Harris Short Cut Road, is a part of the Horry County Museum, located a few miles away at the former (circa) 1905 Burroughs School. Opened in 2009, the L.W. Paul Farm aims to give visitors a taste of the work and life of an average local farmer between 1900 and 1955. The Farm was named for local resident farmer-turned-developer, Larry Paul (1942-2020), who funded the Farm’s construction and spearheaded the building effort.
“Our first stop after the animals are fed is to top and sucker tobacco” says McCracken, referring to the practice of removing the top flowering bits of the tobacco plant, and pinching off the small, useless “sucker” leaves at its bottom. This encourages bigger plants and more leaf growth. This is done by hand today, as it was just a few decades earlier.
Tobacco was once big business in Horry and surrounding counties. After the booming naval stores trade (turpentine, pitch, pine tar, cypress) of the 1700-1800s declined, many turned to farming tobacco and/or cotton. The L.W. Paul Farm grows Carolina bright leaf, flue-cured tobacco, which is true to the history of regional tobacco farmers.
Today, century-old small farm “’bacca barns” still dot the rural countryside along forgotten roads and even some busy highways, but with disuse they are quickly being lost to time and the elements. The Farm keeps and maintains a traditional flue-heated barn to cure the tobacco grown there. The green tobacco is strung by hand, hung and slowly cured over the course of a week or so, 24/7. At the bottom of the barn metal flues carry wood-fired hot air between 80-140 degrees, slowly dehydrating the tobacco until it turns golden brown. The tobacco grown at the Farm is eventually used for compost.
Even with steep declines in commercial tobacco farming, it’s estimated that Horry County still grows half of all the South Carolina tobacco grown in the state, valued at an estimated $20-plus million annually.
As the heat of the day sets in, McCraken comes inside for a break to enjoy the air-conditioned wonder that is the L.W. Paul Living History Farm Gift Shop.
Ice cold sodas, bottled water, snacks and even frozen ice-cream treats are Gift Shop luxuries that Horry County farmers and homesteaders of the 1900s could not imagine. Even though Charleston had had electricity since 1882, it would be another 50-plus years before it would arrive in rural Conway, thanks to the REA, the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. By the mid-1950s most homes and farms across the U.S. had electric power because of the federally funded FDR-led New Deal program.
Over a MoonPie and a Grape NEHI we discuss the monumental changes that took place between 1900 and 1955, the Farm’s mandated historical span. Of course, in that era not everyone farmed; some locals harvested the bounty of the sea, and many more were in the timber industry, which was once very active in the region. During WWII the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base employed thousands, including McCracken’s grandfather, and by the 1950s, hospitality along the coast was becoming a major employer. But almost everyone with a house, especially in rural areas, had a small plot of land.
Just after the Civil War, and well into the 1960s, there were still plenty of tenant farmers and sharecroppers in Horry County. The first were former slaves and their descendants, but there were also sustenance farmers, commercial farmers, either full-time or part-time, and those who tended a tiny plot of 500-square feet to the thousands of acres from the farming giants of the day growing primarily cotton and tobacco.
“In just a generation or two we went from horse & buggy to diesel-powered tractors and air conditioning,” remarks McCracken. “There were a lot of changes that went on in that 55-year period, no doubt,” McCracken continues, “but we try to stress, and stay focused on, the Great Depression era.”
In the fall, farmers of the region would dig up their sweet potato crop, and that’s nearly a daily task at the Farm this time of year, allowing modern visitors to witness what was once a ubiquitous practice along the rural landscape. One of the oldest crops cultivated in the world, the highly nutritious sweet potatoes would help sustain families through the leaner winter months, thanks to open-air curing, and then colder storage in root cellars and through canning.
In the kitchen area of the farm, Marian Calder (Assistant Director of the Museum) cans field peas in much the same way women from generations before did, using boiling water and a pressure cooker. She’s become quite adept at a now less than common life-hack once known to virtually every American. Farmers from the early 1900s were naturally organic and applied farm-to-table practices long before it was trendy. Before the widespread use of the deadly DDT (1940-1970s), farmers generally utilized much less hazardous crop management practices, though some experimented with arsenic, sulfur, kerosene and other lethal pesticide cocktails. But not here. Natural fertilizers, such as manure and compost, along with crop rotation were more common on the small farm. This practice keeps L.W. Paul Farm food delicious and healthy.
“Kids were sent into the fields every day to hand-pick worms and other bugs directly off the crops,” notes McCracken.
We walk by towering stalks of corn that could dwarf even the tallest among us, but this year’s crop was a challenge.
“This is our third corn crop,” says McCracken, “the first two failed.” This apparently was not uncommon in a day without modern irrigation and broad-spectrum pesticides.
“When the weather doesn’t cooperate, we spend our time shelling field peas on the back porch,” states McCraken, with little idea that this concept, to an over-worried, over-thinker, sounded glorious. Not a bad way to spend a few hours.
You’ll find a dozen out buildings and small barns, a church, and outhouse (though there are modern bathrooms inside the gift shop) and a small “shotgun” home, narrow, with no hallways, one room to the next, designed to improve airflow. The farmhouse is a typical homestead of an early sharecropper, or of a small family of modest means.
Because of a limited museum staff, regular, guided tours are not common at the Farm, unless a visiting school group is scheduled, or a slow Saturday allows. Generally, guests are free to wander the Farm and can usually find an interpreter (museum staff) to answer specific questions.
Demonstrations and kids’ programs, however, are scheduled throughout the year and are well attended. Many, such as the kids’ Corn & Costume event each October (see website for schedule) and Syrup Day (Nov. 15, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.) draw big crowds. Though the events are typically listed as 9 a.m. – 12 p.m., the Farm stays open through the end of the day and crowds arriving later can still enjoy a visit with plenty to see and do.
“Typically, we start to shut things down around now,” says McCracken. “We feed the animals, lock up the buildings. We’ll catch up on behind the scenes [office work] at the end of the day as well.”
“It’s very rewarding to work with crops from start to finish, planting to harvest,” continues McCracken, “to work with the mules and other animals, and be able teach visitors and school kids and to learn from others who maybe grew up doing this stuff. The Farm and the Museum are hidden gems. Everyone needs to visit.”
There’s no charge to visit the L.W. Paul Living History Farm, though donations are gladly accepted.
The L.W. Paul Living History Farm is located at 2279 Harris Short Cut Road, Conway. Open 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Tues.-Sat. (843)915-5321, horrycountymuseum.org
