The Peachoid

One of the joys of traveling by motorhome is visiting small town America. While the coach was being serviced we set out to see more of the sites around Gaffney, SC. On our last visit we spent time at Cowpens National Battlefield. This time we decided to learn more about the town of Gaffney itself, so we wandered through the downtown area and spent time in their museum. The revitalization of downtown is a work in progress since, as you can imagine, the poor economy has limited both business opportunities and visitors. We got an earful from the owner of a large antiques store who is eager for a change in Washington in the hopes that it will improve the business climate.

Across from the new city hall is a reconstruction/reclamation of the log cabin home of the founding father, Michael Gaffney. The town sprung from its beginnings as a tavern and store at a crossroads in post-revolutionary (1803) South Carolina. The area is steeped in Revolutionary War history and Cowpens is only one of several revolutionary battlefields in the region. We hope to visit others such as Kings Mountain on future trips to Gaffney for service, but we limited ourselves to the downtown area this time.

The city of Gaffney reclaimed a retired elementary school and built an impressive history museum that contains many artifacts from early Indian settlements, the Revolutionary War, and early industry such as iron smelting. There were many exhibits depicting life in Gaffney, including athletic accomplishments of the local high school and college. One section was labeled Horses, Hooch and Hot Rods. It seems moonshine and stock car racing are in the blood of South Carolinians and these passions were well represented in the museum.

We visited Limestone College and the Limestone Springs nearby. The college was originally a hotel that was converted to a girl’s high school and subsequently a girl’s college in 1864. It is now coed, and boasts a national men’s Division II lacrosse championship in 2009. So far this year the women’s team is number three! In their opening game they won 22-0. How about that! For those not familiar with the sport it is scored like hockey. One goal, one point.

 

The campus is quite small and is bordered by two historical sites. The limestone quarry (now a lake) is the quarry site of the official South Carolina stone used to build the Washington Monument. I need to learn more about this, but evidently each state was to contribute a stone for the foundation of the monument.  Nearby are the Limestone Springs that in the late1800’s were a vacation destination and thought to have healing properties.

We returned to the Freightliner Service Center around 3:30 and found that all of the work was completed, so we settled up. I have to tell you that the folks here at Freightliner are terrific. They are really a friendly bunch and know their stuff. Anyone out there riding on a Freightliner chassis owes it to themselves to attend the Camp Freightliner classes held several times a year and have your chassis looked over by the pros.

Oh, what is a Peachoid? Thought you would never ask!

The Peachoid is the 135’ tall, one million gallon water tower built by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works from 1979 to 1981. The special features that make it peach specific are “false work” welded to a spherical tank. The paint job that makes it such a wonderful landmark was done by artist Peter Freundenburg, a specialist in super-graphics and murals. This thing is pretty impressive! The stem (not visible in this picture) is 12 feet long and 19 inches in diameter. The leaf is 60’ by 16’ and weighs 7 tons!

So. Now you know!