Our beautiful
home was once a resting place and part-time residence of the Winyaw and
Waccamaw Indians who called the place Chicora, or "the land." Hundreds
of years later, the Spanish explored our coast as early as 1514. We
were also sometimes home to the notorious pirate Blackbeard in the 1700s.
Named for
Revolutionary War General Peter Horry, our county and town eventually became
home to farmers and timbermen, fisherman and watermen. The area did
support a few early indigo plantations, but since it was initially difficult
to reach the coast from inland settlements, the area remained relatively
uninhabited until the 1900s when the railroad connected inland towns to the
ocean. The Intracoastal Waterway opened the area further in 1936.
Weathering
storms and cycles of economic boom and bust, the four communities of Cherry
Grove, Windy Hill, Crescent Beach and Ocean Drive consolidated city services
and formally joined in 1968 to become the City of North Myrtle Beach.
