"M" is for Myrtle Beach

"M" is for Myrtle Beach (Horry County; 2010 population 27, 109). The centerpiece of South Carolina’s Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach is an international resort and ranks among the fastest-growing and most economically significant cities. The area’s first settlement (called New Town) was a logging camp. Then came a hotel and a general store. Ocean front lots were available for $25. The settlement was renamed Myrtle Beach, after the wax myrtle, a shrub common to the region. Over the next fifty years Myrtle Beach became a resort, primarily for South Carolinians. Hurricane Hazel (1954) temporarily stalled a post-World War II boom, but within a decade national hotels and restaurant chains replaced small vacation cottages. By the 1990s, good weather, golf courses and entertainment and shopping complexes attracted a significant retirement population and year-round vacationers to Myrtle Beach.