Peachoid

File:Gaffney Peachoid.jpg

The Peachoid

The Peachoid is a 135 feet (41 m) tall water tower in Gaffney, South Carolina, U.S.A., that resembles a peach. The water tower holds one million U.S. gallons (3.8 million litres) of water and is located off Peachoid Road by Interstate 85 between exits 90 and 92 (near the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway). Usually referred to by locals as "The Peach" and by passing motorists as "Mr. Peach" or "The Moon over Gaffney", the water tank is visible for several miles around these exits.

An example of novelty architecture, the Peachoid is one of the most recognizable landmarks on the part of I-85 connecting Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia.

History

The Peachoid was built in 1981 by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, of steel and concrete. An overlay stem and leaf were laid across the structure, an enormous "cleft" was created with steel paneling, and Peter Freudenberg, an artist who worked with macro-art, painted the structure to realistically resemble a peach.

The Peachoid was commissioned by the Gaffney Board of Public Works, who had a need for elevated water storage and wished to find a way of building it using federal funding. The shape of the peach was selected because the Gaffney economy was then dependent upon peach orchards, and because the people of the town wanted to make clear that South Carolina, and at one time, Cherokee County alone (where Gaffney is located) produced more peaches per year than the entire state of Georgia (known as the "Peach State"). Since its construction, the Peachoid's extremely high visibility has introduced an element of tourism to the local economy, and a smaller (500,000 U.S. gallons, 1.9 million litres) peachoid has been built for Clanton, Alabama by the same company.

In popular culture

• The Peachoid was a focal plot point in Chapter 3 of House of Cards, where it was joked that the structure resembles large vulva and clitoris. In the episode, Frank Underwood, as a native of Gaffney, keeps a photo of the Peachoid in his office, and in Chapter 3 the Peachoid becomes the subject of a political and potentially legal battle for Frank.

External links

• "Peach Water Tower". Ohio Barns. Retrieved 2005-09-08. (Contains personal photos and GPS coordinates.)
• View of The Peachoid from Google Maps