Alpheus Victor and Martha Cooper Bethea Farmstead
National Register Listing
Street Address:
2547 S.C. Hwy. 34 West, Dillon vicinity (Dillon County)
Alternate Name:
Hillcrest Farm
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10807717020
Description and Narrative:
The Bethea Farmstead is locally significant under Agriculture as an unusually intact historic farm complex that represents evolving agricultural trends in Dillon County between 1911 and 1974. The property also has local significance under Architecture as its farmhouse embodies the characteristics of the Queen Anne style, and because the district as a whole with its agricultural outbuildings represents an outstanding example of a twentieth century agricultural complex in Dillon County. The district includes twenty-three contributing resources that as a whole represent a twentieth century farm that adapted to the advent of tobacco as a major cash crop, the persistent cultivation of cotton throughout tobacco’s increase in popularity, and the use of tenant farming, the dominant form of land management in Dillon County for much of the period of significance. The period of significance begins in 1911 with the completion of the farmhouse and commencement of A.V. Bethea’s cultivation of the property’s fields, when tobacco demand was surging after years of declining cotton prices. Bethea’s farm flourished with multiple booms in the tobacco market and cotton’s continued decline; weathered the Great Depression as farms across the area struggled; and saw implementation of new agricultural methods that would vastly change the industry, all while employing as many as twenty-three tenant farmers at a time through these years. The period of significance ends in 1974, when tenants began to vacate the property, reflecting the widespread abandonment of tenant farming in Dillon County. Listed in the National Register September 26, 2024.
Period of Significance:
1911 – 1974
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Agriculture;Architecture
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
September 26 2024
