Kaminski House

Grand Strand History

Rather than producing a linear history for the area, we're going to experiment with a different approach. As we find interesting stories and events from the Grand Strand's history, we will present them as capsules. Our first installment is a trip down the South Carolina coast during the spring of 1791 with George Washington. An interactive map breaks down his route and combines his journal descriptions with comments on where the locations are today.

Here is:
George Washington's Trip Through South Carolina

Georgetown

This 18th Century seaport and center of the plantation economy is now the historical center of the Grand Strand. The staff of the Rice Museum has written A Brief History of Georgetown County as well as produced the following pieces about the interesting and important rice culture centered around Georgetown for a century and a half:

• Rise of the Rice Culture examines the beginnings of the immensely affluent plantation economy that developed around the crop.
• The Rice Class looks at lifestyles of the rich and famous of a different century.
• Collapse covers the War and Reconstruction which led to the end of a society.

For a look at a surviving rice plantation, complete with slave cabins and oak lined avenue, Mansfield Plantation conducts tours by appointment and also operates as a bed and breakfast inn.

Grand Strand, South Carolina

Copyright © 1997 eGO, Photos © Virgil Graham