Page 12 - Sea Level 2019
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The Sunday Observer in Georgetown ran this front-page
                                                                                   headline on June 8, 1902: “HO, FOR PAWLEYS ISLAND.
                                                                                    Georgetown’s Famous Summer Resort Opens Up Today.”
                                                                                       The article’s author noted that he had been getting
                                                                                 inquiries about tourist facilities from “the whole upcountry
      Doing Nothing                                                             and even from other states” like North Carolina and Georgia.

                                                                                       “With a certain amount of judicious advertising,”
       &                                                                           More than a century later of course   sites, upon nine of which houses have
                                                                                        he wrote, “Pawleys Island could be made one of the
              Doing It Well
                                                                                            most popular watering holes in the South.”


                                               by Steve Roberts
                                                                                that prediction has come true. Pawleys has
                                                                                become a “popular watering hole” for visitors   been erected, in which reside forty of the
                                                                                                                    white population.”
                                                                                from throughout North America. (The Myrtle   That privileged sanctuary began to
                                                                                Beach newspaper even runs special stories   change after the Civil War, with the demise of
                                                                                about news from Canada!). But it didn’t start   slavery and the collapse of the rice industry.
                                                                                out that way. When Lee Brockington and I   Pawleys gradually evolved from a private
                                                                                were researching our recent book, “Images   to a public place, and this transformation
                                                                                of America: Pawleys Island,” we knew a lot   was not as familiar as the founding period,
                                                                                about the island’s origins. It started as a   which was dominated by old families and
                                                                                private preserve for wealthy rice planters who   old money. With the invaluable help of Julie
                                                                                sent their families to the seashore during   Warren of the Georgetown County Library,
                                                                                the summer months to escape the malaria-  we unearthed contemporary accounts and
                                                                                bearing mosquitos infesting their inland   photos that documented the island’s new
                                                                                farms and fields. The first homes were built   identity as a tourist destination.
                                                                                on Pawleys in 1822 and in 1845 the first
                                                                                                                      We found a dispatch from an early visitor,
                                                                                causeway was constructed connecting the
                                                                                                                    Matthew Tighe, who wrote in 1888 that a
                                                                                island to the mainland. By 1848 Dr. Andrew
                                                                                Hasell wrote that Pawleys “contains many

















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