Strand Notebook | L.W. Paul Living History Farm takes visitors back in time

April 11 is Spring Event Day at the L.W. Paul Living History Farm. Everyone is invited to enjoy a day of plowing and planting, and numerous other activities and demonstrations. Admission to the farm is always free.

The L.W. Paul Living History Farm brings the days of the one-horse farm back to life, giving visitors an opportunity to experience how many farmers once lived, worked and worshiped in Horry County and other places.

Farm Manager Wayne Skipper said the farm shows a very important part of the history and development of Horry County. “We know that a large majority of the population lived as the farm demonstrates life between 1900 and 1955 here in Horry County,” he said.

Children and adults will enjoy the farm animals, including the mules geared up and plowing, preparing the fields for planting. Tobacco plants will be set out, and corn will be planted.

The seasons have always dictated farm life, Skipper said, and that is what dictates the activities at the farm.

Traditional farm tools and techniques will be used to demonstrate. Visitors are invited to try planting tobacco with the old hand-setters, which many people who grew up on farms remember using before more modern methods of planting tobacco came along.

There will be a wide variety of activities and crafts for adults and children, including planting a garden, wood working, making lye soap, washing clothes, grinding grits and meal, sawing tobacco-curing wood, blacksmithing, shelling corn, quilting, cooking on a wood stove, butter making and children’s games.

Food, snacks and gifts can be purchased in the Visitor’s Center, which offers grits, corn meal, syrup and other products made at the farm, a large array of books by local authors and more.

Visitors can also sit and listen to music in the old church, go inside the furnished two-bedroom farmhouse and smell the food cooking on the wood stove, visit the blacksmith shop, walk around the fields, watch the animals and just enjoy being outside on a farm.

The L.W. Paul Living History Farm is open to visitors on Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and offers several special events annually. It is located beside U.S. 701 North at 2279 Harris Short Cut Road, Conway, and is a part of the Horry County Museum. Walter Hill is museum director.

For more information, visit www.horrycountymuseum.org. Call the farm at 365-3596 or the museum, at 805 Main St., Conway, at 915-5320.

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Strand Notebook | L.W. Paul Living History Farm takes visitors back in time."