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SUMMARY OF ARTICLE

History

The F.G. Burroughs steamship

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the general area along Long Bay was inhabited by the Waccamaw Indians. The Waccamaw used the river for travel and fished along the shore around Little River. Waties Island, the primary barrier island along Long Bay, has evidence of burial and shell mounds, remains of the visiting Waccamaw.

The first settler along Long Bay arrived in the late 18th Century, attempting to extend the plantation system outward towards the ocean . Records are sparse from this period, with most of the recorded history pieced together from old land grants. They were met with mixed results, producing unremarkable quantities of indigo and tobacco. The coast's soil was sandy and most of the crop yields were of an inferior quality.

Prior to the American Revolution, the area along the future Grand Strand was essentially uninhabited. Several families received land grants along the coast, including most notably the Withers: John, Richard, William and Mary. They received an area around present-day Myrtle Swash, at the time known as Wither's Swash or the 8-Mile Swash. Another grant was given to James Minor, a barrier island named Minor Island, now Waties Island, off of the coast near Little River.

Mary Wither's gravestone at Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church speaks to the remoteness of the former Strand: "She gave up the pleasures of Society and retired to Long Bay, where she resided a great part of her life devoted to the welfare of her children."

As America reached independence, Horry County remained essentially unchanged, and the coast remained barren. George Washington scouted out the Southern states during his term, traveling down the King's Highway. He stayed the night at Windy Hill and was led across Wither's Swash to Georgetown by Jeremiah Vereen.

The Withers family remained one of the few settlers around Myrtle Beach for the next half-century. In 1822, a strong hurricane swept the house of R. F. Withers into the ocean, drowning 18 people inside. The tragedy made the Withers family decide to abandon their plots along the coast, and the area, left unattended, began to return to forest.

Following the Civil War, most of the abandoned land along the ocean was purchased by the Conway Lumber Company, now New South Lumber. The company built the Conway & Seashore Railroad to move chopped timber from the coast inland. A "Withers" post office was established at the site of the old Swash.

Original Myrtle Beach Airforce Base during World War II

After the railroad was finished, employees of the lumber and railroad company would take train flatcars down to the beach on their weekends off, in essence becoming the first Grand Strand tourists . The area where the railroad ended was nicknamed "New Town", contrasting it with the "Old Town", or Conway.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Joe Mercier envisioned turning New Town into a tourist destination, a coastal town rivaling the northern beaches like Coney Island. Burroughs died in 1897, but his sons completed the railroad's expansion to the beach and opened the Seaside Inn in 1901, to house new visitors .

Founded in 1938, it continued to grow for the next couple of decades, and in 1957, it finally incorporated. a contest was held to name the town and Burroughs' wife suggested honoring the locally abundant shrub, the wax myrtle. So the town was named Myrtle Beach.

In 1937, Myrtle Beach Municipal Airport was built, however it was promptly taken over by the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1940 and converted into a military base . Also in 1940, Kings Highway was finally paved, giving Myrtle Beach its first primary highway.

Recent Events

((( REAL recent events, not new tourist traps. Can include Hard Rock Park's demise and rebirth, however, because of its impact and replacement of the former Pavillion.)))

Geography

Myrtle Beach is located near the center of Long Bay, an arc of beaches extending southeastern North Carolina to Winyah Bay in South Carolina. It is situated mainly between the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the East, although building west of the waterway is rapidly increasing.

Much of the area between the coast and the waterway is a slightly elevated sandbar or dune area. West of the waterway the land is mostly pine forest with a normal high water table, in which developers dredge ponds and use the soil to create elevated areas for better drainage around buildings. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 16.8 square miles (43.5 km²), of which, 16.76 square miles (43.5 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (0.12%) is water.

Climate

The Grand Strand and Myrtle Beach collectively lie in a Humid subtropical climate, experiencing mild winters and very warm summers.

Hurricanes

Myrtle Beach has been struck by several notable hurricanes in the past sixty years.

On the morning of October 15th, 1954, Hurricane Hazel made landfall as a Category 4 storm near Calabash, North Carolina, less than thirty miles north of downtown . The boardwalk that stretched along the sand downtown was destroyed, as well as much of the beach, which had been dredged up onto Ocean Boulevard and the surrounding avenues. Ultimately, the destruction led to an accelerated change of the area from small hotels and beach houses to the larger high-rise town that exists today.

Hurricane Hugo struck the Isle of Palms, South Carolina in 1989 as a Category 4, south of the Strand. While not as devastating as Hazel, many houses were washed off of their foundations, with some coming to rest directly in the middle of Oceean Boulevard. In its entirety, Hugo would cost the United States around $10 billion dollars in damage.

Hurricane Floyd bypassed Myrtle Beach by mere miles, but left major flooding in its wake. Many roads were completely flooded out; the Waccamaw River flooded its banks at several points, and the city of Conway, SC was cut in half from overflow from Crabtree.

Demographics

People stuff

Economy

Information about tourism and other sources of income. Very likely to be landgrabbed, be careful and keep it straightforward.

Culture

Beach culture and the MB area

Education

Local schools

Media

Local media

Sports

Sports stuff