The area's family tree begins with American Indian roots. The first inhabitants were the Waccamaaw and Winyah Indians who named the land "Chicora," meaning "the Land." Their lifestyle is recreated in several detailed exhibits at the Horry County Museum in Conway about 12 miles west of Myrtle Beach. An Indian burial mound is located at Waites Island near Little River and the remains of an Indian village have been excavated on Wachesaw Plantation near Murrells Inlet.

Early attempts by European explorers to settle the Grand Strand met with disaster. Spaniard Lucas Vasques de Allyon founded the first colony in North America here in 1526, but the settlement was ravaged by disease, and the inhabitants perished within a year.

English colonists formed Prince George Parish and laid out the plans for Georgetown, the state's third oldest city, in 1730. Surrounded by rivers and marshland, Georgetown became the center of America's colonial rice empire. A rich plantation culture took root here and reached its zenith just prior to the Civil War in 1861. Guided tours of the Georgetown historical district are held daily.

Hopsewee Plantation, birthplace of Thomas Lynch Jr., signer of the Declaration of Independence, is one of the many historical rice plantations which preserve the colonial flavor of the Georgetown countryside. Located 12 miles south of Georgetown, Hopsewee is open to visitors from March through October, Georgetown's Rice Museum, formerly the historic Old Market Building, tells the colorful story of the crop that made plantation life possible.

Prior to the Civil War, plantation owners turned Pawleys Island into one of the first summer resorts on the Atlantic coast. Four miles long and a half-mile wide, Pawleys Island is lined with old summer cottages nestled in groves of oleander and oak trees. Wealthy planters and their families spent summers here to avoid malaria and other deadly fevers that infested the swampy coastal region. Just a few miles north of Pawleys Island, Murrells Inlet is the source of the area's most endearing ghost stories, including that of Alice Belin Flagg (1833-1849), probably the Inlet's most popular spirit.

During the 18th century, pirates found the waters off the Grand Strand a paradise for their wild revels. The infamous Blackbeard regularly terrorized the Carolina shores before his gory death in 1718. captain Kidd himself is thought to have buried some loot near Murrells Inlet.

Unlike Georgetown County, Horry (pronounced oh'-ree) County was basically cut off from the plantation culture that flourished elsewhere along the coast, due to being surrounded by rivers on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. Horry was settled relatively late by farmers and timbermen. The county relied on its own labor force to fulfill all its needs and soon earned the title "the Independent Republic of Horry."

Until the 1900s, the beaches of Horry were virtually uninhabited due to the county's geographical inaccessibility and poor economy. But near the turn of the century, the Burroughs & Collins Company, a timber-turpentine firm with extensive beachfront holdings, began developing the resort potential of the virgin strand.

In 1900, Burroughs & Collins constructed a railroad to the beach from the Waccamaw River at Conway and built the beach's first hotel, the Seaside Inn, in 1901. The Grand Strand's first summer visitors were Horry families who had to contend with razorback hogs rooting under their cottages! At that time, oceanfront lots sold for $25, and buyers received and extra lot free if they built a house valued at $500 or more. The beach community was called "New Town" until the Horry Herald newspaper held a contest to officially name the area. Mrs. F.G. Burroughs, wife of the founder of the Burroughs & Collins Company, won the competition with "Myrtle Beach," a name she chose for the many wax myrtle trees growing wild along the shore.

In the 1920s, a group of businessmen began building an upscale resort called Arcady at the north end of the community. Designed for affluent society, Arcady featured the present Pine Lakes International County Club, the Strand's first golf club and birthplace of the magazine "Sports Illustrated," as well as the legendary Ocean Forest Hotel.

Completed in the 1930s, the grand Ocean Forest Hotel featured more than 300 rooms, indoor and outdoor pools, an athletic club, stables, gold-domed gazebos and crystal chandeliers in the elegant ballrooms.

Although the Arcady dream dissolved in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Ocean Forest remained the center of Myrtle Beach social life for nearly 30 years. The stately old building was demolished in 1974 to allow for future development.

In 1912, Chicago businessman Simeon B. Chapin purchased property here and invested in the town's development. The Myrtle Beach public park and library are named for him.

Myrtle Beach was incorporated in 1938, and in 1957 it became a city. The town expanded during the 1960s as the Grand Strand became nationally known as a resort community. Motels, amusement parks, golf courses and tennis courts were constructed and land values skyrocketed as major developers arrived. In the 1970s, new construction topped $75 million and the permanent population tripled.

In the 1980s, the Grand Strand's popularity increased sharply. Even the 1989 visit by Hurricane Hugo, whose eye hit the coast 100 miles south of Myrtle Beach, has not interrupted the growth of the Grand Strand. In 1989, the city of Myrtle Beach was named the sixth fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States, according to "American Demographics" magazine.

Since 1990, the Myrtle Beach area has entered a new boom period with the emergence of a flourishing country music/entertainment theater industry. In addition, many new stores, hotels, restaurants, homes and industries are going up throughout the area. The editors of "Southern Living's Family Vacation Guide" picked Myrtle Beach and Pawleys Island as two of the South's top 10 resorts in a January 1994 issue of the publication. The April 1995 issue of "American Demographics" ranks the Myrtle Beach area second in the nation in projected population and employment growth for the next ten years. The Myrtle Beach area is the state's leading tourism destination, and according to a 1995 CNN Gallup Poll, South Carolina was ranked second as the nation's favorite beach destination. A recent report by the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) and AAA ranked the Myrtle Beach area the second most popular summer destination in the U.S., just behind Orlando.