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Atlantic Beach, once a mecca for African American vacationers in Myrtle Beach and other East Coast communities during segregation, remains one of a few African American-owned and governed oceanfront resorts in North America. In 1934, George W. Tyson and his wife, Roxie Ballen Tyson, began purchasing and developing land in the area. The Atlantic Beach Company, which was comprised of doctors from North Carolina and South Carolina, continued this process from 1943 until 1956, and the tiny safe haven fondly became known as the "Black Pearl of the Grand Strand." Visitors came by the busload for the fishing, swimming, R&B beach music, and popular dancing among African Americans that later became known as the shag. Thousands of tourists continue to flock to the area on their motorcycles each year for the popular Memorial Day weekend BikeFest.

For almost a century, the heart of Myrtle Beach was defined by a place simply called "the Pavilion." From the original structure built in 1908, the Pavilion was the center of the resort town's growing tourism industry. It was a destination point for anyone coming to the Grand Strand. Here you could stroll the Boardwalk, play arcade games, make faces in fun mirrors, ride rides, dance the Carolina Shag, or sit on a bench and watch everyone else do all of the above. The Pavilion underwent several incarnations. The first ones were wooden and vulnerable, but the final was concrete and seemingly indestructible, standing for nearly 60 years. Hardly an architectural marvel, what the Pavilion lacked in grandeur, it made up for in pure old-fashioned fun. The beloved structure and its rides fell prey to economics and a wrecking ball in 2006.

Boasting one of the oldest lighthouses in North America and the most working lighthouses today, South Carolina has a long seafaring history. In 1767, the Morris Island Lighthouse was built at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, and before 1860, there were lighthouses in Georgetown, Cape Romain, Bull's Bay, and Hunting Island. During the Civil War, all lighthouses on the eastern coast were darkened. Many were destroyed. After the war, towers that had been damaged were repaired, and additional lights were erected on Daufuskie and Hilton Head Islands. In 1962, the new Charleston Light on Sullivan's Island replaced the Morris Island Lighthouse, which was suffering from erosion by the ever-encroaching sea. The new light contained an elevator and two rotating beacons capable of producing 28 million candlepower, a light that can be seen 26 miles out to sea. At that time, it was considered one of the most powerful lights in the Western Hemisphere.