| South Carolina Department of Archives and History |
| National Register Properties in South Carolina McPhail Angus Farm, Oconee County (320 Coyote Lane, Seneca vicinity) |
The McPhail Angus Farm has been a locally significant farm for more than one hundred years. It was established in 1902 by John Augustus McPhail (1876-1961) and later expanded by his son Walter Hoolu McPhail (1901-1979). The farm complex is significant for illustrating twentieth century developments in agriculture in the South Carolina upcountry, most notably the transition from a traditional dependence on growing cotton as a cash crop to raising cattle as a major source of farm income and growing fescue grass as both a source of pasture feed and a cash crop. The Aberdeen Angus herd established in 1936 by W.H. McPhail is one of the oldest Angus herds in South Carolina and has been designated as a Historic Herd by the American Angus Association. The fescue pastures McPhail seeded here beginning in 1939 produced seed for local farmers as well as certified seed sold to established seed companies such as Pennington Seed and Sawan Seed, which in turn sold it to farmers across the Southeast. The farm is also significant as an excellent intact example of an early-to-mid-twentieth century farm complex. The farm complex includes eight properties - four buildings, three structures, and one site - that contribute to the historic and architectural character of the farm: a large ca. 1886 mule/cattle barn; a ca. 1900 fertilizer/truck shed; an early twentieth-century corn crib; an early twentieth-century chicken coop; more than 140 acres of terraced agricultural fields; the Jack Robinson House, a late nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century tenant house; the Norris House, a late nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century tenant house; and the John A. McPhail House, built ca. 1943-45. The complex also includes fourteen noncontributing modern resources. Listed in the National Register November 7, 2007.
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