Walter Houlu McPhail was born February 21, 1901, in Sandy Springs, South Carolina to John Augustus and Mary Stevenson McPhail. When Houlu was a year old, his father bought the home place in Oconee, where WH lived until his death in 1979, and where the home-base for Tokeena Angus remains today.
Houlu’s interest in cows began very early with the purchase of a yearling heifer and in 1922, after a year at Clemson College, he walked home to begin his life-long profession as a cattle farmer.