Georgetown History

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The early part of the last century saw this area flourish as a hunting preserve for the rich and powerful: from presidents and politicians, to industrialist and movie stars. Hobcaw Barony became such a retreat, created by native son Bernard Baruch, who enjoyed the visits of F.D.R., Churchill, Vanderbilt, DuPont, and others.

As the pendulum of time swung from the 19th to the 20th century, we found an untapped wealth in the forest lands that were linked to the port city and the world by the area's greatest resource  — water.

It was a major undertaking to move millions of tons of rock to the two barrier islands at the entrance to the harbor and build "jetties" of over 11,000 feet on the north and 21, 000 feet on the south entrance of the bay, with steam and sail power. A dredge was built to maintain a channel and, coupled with the railway and the river system, the lumber business flourished. Mills sprang up almost overnight. The Atlantic Coast Lumber Company was the largest in the world with its 5,000,000 board foot dock and shed. Turpentine, pine rosin, shingles, furniture - but none as unusual as the DuPont wood alcohol and dynamite mill.

Over at Hobcaw Barony, the decision was made not to route the newly-conceived coastal highway down the bay and on to Charleston, but to go through the town of Georgetown. With the completion of the Lafayette Bridge, the final link from Maine to Miami put Georgetown County in the spotlight. The Intracoastal Waterway utilized the mighty Waccamaw River and Winyah Bay.

Imagine coming to the area in a coach with all your belongings and provisions for the summer, traveling a two-lane rut and having the Atlantic Ocean at your front door with a salt creek and forest out back. The pilgrimage that started with the rice planters' families to the isolated summer retreats at Pawleys Island, Litchfield and Murrells Inlet by ferrying the river or by horse and carriage could be accomplished in one day by automobile.

Coming into Murrells Inlet, the visitor found a rambling village with sections named Sunnyside, Cedar Hill and a small island called Drunken Jack's, plus a lodge or two to feed the fishermen and the few vacationing families, and a small fishing fleet. Who would have dreamed that it would grow into the Seafood Capital that it is today? Crab boys and creek boys are a thing of the past, but you can still catch your own fish and shrimp, just be careful walking in the sticky goo. Coming south at one of the largest Plantations in the world, the Huntingtons built a Morrish-style "Castle by the Sea" and developed a natural wonderland that we know as Brookgreen Gardens. With the construction of Atalaya and the road from the river to the ocean, they became the largest employer on the "Neck" in the '30s. Magnolia Beach, swept clean in the Great Storm (the hurricane of 1893) , has become a model state park with 'gators and eagles, and the castle still stands for you to view.

The Kings Highway followed the river, linking together the plantations in All Saints Parish with carriage roads down the allees of oaks to their mansions. Today, redwing blackbirds nest in the march grasses and osprey look down from their massive nests in the tops of towering cypress to survey the golf courses that meander through the old live oaks, azaleas and magnolias.

The carriage roads were paved and led you over the beach at Litchfield where the Hot & Hot Fish Club used to meet. Industries sprouted beneath the oaks from sail cordage and oak sticks. They also made hot sauce from the fields of peppers and caviar from the sturgeon from the rivers.

There was a railroad at Pawleys that ran four miles to the river and a ferry down the peaceful river to Georgetown. With the highway, there's 12 miles of uninterrupted forest and wildflowers that passes by the Hobcaw Barony, where Presidents enjoyed solitude and nature. There are 17,500 acres of forest and wetlands set aside from intrusion for all to enjoy.

The panorama from the high bridge coming into Georgetown leaves little to the imagination as to why Georgetown County is the Tidelands. Rivers flow gently to fill the blue-green Atlantic Ocean eleven miles away. Gracious townhouses and churches lie hidden in the historic district, with a shrimp boat or two, and the oldest fish-house in the state on the banks of the Sampit River.

Down the bay is Battery White, build for the defense of the port during the Civil War and surrounded by Belle Isle Plantation gardens - a national historic landmark.

In the 1930s, it was announced that the largest paper mill in the world was to be built in Georgetown and today they are responsible for the majority of our agricultural forest land, raising a renewable resource. One the banks of the Santee River where the rockfish still run, Hopsewee Plantation House still stands in all her glory with a real southern welcome for all who wish to visit.

Archibald Rutledge, South Carolina's Poet Laurent and reverent steward of our heritage, gives insight into the future from observing our past.

The river flows
through landscape lost;
By storied ruins
of the past,
The river finds the
ancient coast,
The rolling surge,
the ocean vast;
There where the
craggy cedars mark
Through vistas,
opening on the foam,
The floodtide flowing
full and dark,
The pacing of the
ebbtide home.


reprinted by permission, Captain Sandy Vermont