Page 46 - Lachicotte 2020

The communities in Georgetown and the
Waccamaw Neck have developed from these early
days of Revolutionary War soldiers, plantation owners,
pirates, Civil War bootleggers and Prohibition-era rum
smugglers into thriving, modern, yet laid-back places to live,
work and play. Referred to today as the “Hammock Coast,”
our area is known for its unparalleled beauty and
Southern hospitality.

The rise of the plantations gave rise to the
unique Gullah culture of enslaved West
Africans and their free descendants. Without

the cultivation of rice by the Gullah people
of South Carolina’s coast, many of the area’s
most famous dishes – shrimp and grits,
gumbo and Frogmore Stew, for example –
Our never would have existed.

Communities The Waccamaw Neck

The Waccamaw Neck is a long narrow peninsula
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Waccamaw River,
known for quaint fishing villages, resort communities and a
relaxing pace that operates on island time. Residents watch
sunrises from secluded beaches, explore the marshes by kayak
and enjoy family life that joins the indoors with outside via
wide front and back porches and outdoor living areas, perhaps
I nhabited at various times by Native Americans, the what is now Georgetown, but the settlement failed and the with a fire pit.
At the northernmost end of the Waccamaw Neck are
Spanish sailed away to the Caribbean. English and French
Spanish, French, English, and the Africans who were
brought here as slaves, the history settlements appeared along the dark rivers in the mid-1600s, the unincorporated communities of Garden City Beach and
Murrells Inlet. Garden City
of Georgetown County and the Waccamaw Neck trading with the Native Americans. Following the settlement Beach offers easy access to
makes itself known in our original buildings that of Charleston and Beaufort, Georgetown County was officially the ocean and inlet, making
founded in 1670 and the City of Georgetown was formed
date back to Colonial days, the 300-year-old live oaks in 1729. it the place to be for fishing,
swathed with curtains of Spanish moss, and the stories Colonists began to spread out from the settlements and crabbing and water sports.
our generational families have passed down through farm the land, building plantations for growing indigo, tea With a fishing pier, marina,
the centuries. and, especially, rice. Georgetown produced more than half amusements, restaurants
Francisco Gordillo was the first European to visit our of the U.S. rice crop before the Civil War. Some of the and other businesses, this
part of South Carolina, in 1521. In 1526, Gordillo’s fellow centuries-old plantation homes can still be seen and town is a paradise for
Spaniards attempted the first European settlement near visited today. water lovers.

42 Communities | Salt & Indigo