WRTTEN BY Paul Grimshaw
History
Who says learning can’t be fun? South Carolina is rich with history dating from the Pre-historic to the Colonial period, revolutionary and antebellum eras and through the mid-20th century, including World War II. Get an overview at the Horry County Museum in Conway, which is a historical city of great renown, founded in 1732.
Georgetown should also be on your historical radar. Its charming historic district is filled with shops, restaurants, grand antebellum homes, sailing excursions, museums and antique stores just a few blocks off of U.S. 17. Here you’ll find several museums offering fascinating insights into the Lowcountry of days gone by. The Kaminski House Museum, the Rice Museum and the South Carolina Maritime Museum are all on Front Street, and all within walking distance of one another. The nearby Gullah Museum and the Georgetown County Museum also off rare glimpses of the people and past that made the region what is today.
Leave it to Myrtle Beach to add the really fun and quirky museums to our list: The Hollywood Wax Museum, The Myrtle Beach Pinball Museum, the Wheels of Yesteryear (car museum), Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, the Children’s Museum of South Carolina, EdVenture Children’s Museum (Market Common), WonderWorks, and the Grand Strand Model Railroad Club, all put their own spin on history, Hollywood, science (for kids) and the just plain weird.
Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, The Franklin G. Burroughs–Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum near Springmaid Pierand Warbird Park (Market Common), offer a more refined museum and history-laden experience. Warbird Park is an outdoor display of the military jets that once flew in and out of the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base between 1940-1993, and is also home to a memorial beam from the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Photographs by Ashley Daniels, shuuterstock users grandbrothers; PQK; Randal Hill; shutterstock user Jiujiuer
