by Jayne Cannon

Most travelers through upstate South Carolina probably know Gaffney from its giant peach water tower that’s an Interstate 85 landmark.

As big as it is, the Peachoid—as locals call it—isn’t the only thing to notice about Gaffney, and it’s not just an attention-grabbing gimmick.

As city’s boosters point out, South Carolina tops Georgia as a producer of peaches, with more than 200 million pounds harvested annually. Gaffney is one of the top peach-growing centers in the state, and orchards and peach stands are visible from I-85. The city hosts a Peach Festival each July.

Gaffney also offers shopping, most visibly at the Prime Outlets located off I-85, which features more than 80 designer and brandname outlets, and recently added a Harry & David store. And recent improvements in the downtown area have encouraged more businesses to locate there, where a 20-acre park is planned for the former site of a mill. A cultural center and farmers’ market are also under discussion, and a history and arts museum is scheduled to open before the end of the year.

Gaffney History
Gaffney’s history dates from the 1750s, when settlers first moved into the area. Two key Revolutionary War battle sites, at Cowpens and Kings Mountain, are nearby. In 1803, Irish immigrant Michael Gaffney established a store at the crossroads of what are now U.S. Highway 29 and S.C. Highway 11. He later built an iron works and a resort hotel, which was later converted into a college for women, Limestone College. A non-denominational liberal arts college that enrolls about 700 students on its main campus, the school’s administrative building is the old hotel. The men’s lacrosse team is a perennial national championship contender in NCAA Division II. One more reason to plan a stop in Gaffney— the area regularly boasts some of the cheapest gas prices in South Carolina, a state that frequently has the country’s most inexpensive gas.

Peach Buzz

• The Chicago Bridge and Iron Company built The Peachoid over a period
  of five months in late 1980 and early 1981.
• The Peachoid has a capacity of 1 million gallons of water.
• Some dimensions: The stem on top of the Peachoid is 12 feet long and 18 inches in diameter. The leaf is 60 feet long, 16 feet wide and weighs 7 tons.
• The foundation contains 10 million pounds of concrete.
• It took 50 gallons of paint, mixed into 20 different colors, to paint the Peachoid.
• The Chicago Bridge and Iron Company built a similar peach for the city of Clanton, Ala., in 1992.