Qualla: Horry County, South Carolina

Horry County, South Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Myrtle Beach TheDigitel, CC BY 2.0. Locals will correct you if you pronounce the H. The county is named for Peter Horry, a French Huguenot officer in the South Carolina militia who fought under Francis Marion during the Revolutionary War, and the H stays silent — like Horry himself, the name went into the language quietly. For most of its history, this corner of South Carolina was nearly impossible to reach. Rivers and swamps walled it off from the rest of the state, and the people who lived here gave their county a defiant nickname: the Independent Republic of Horry.

Image: Myrtle Beach TheDigitel | CC BY 2.0

Horry County, South Carolina: An Island in the Lowcountry

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LittleT889, CC BY-SA 4.0. Created from the Georgetown District in 1801, Horry began with about 550 people and a geography that made every neighbor feel distant. The Atlantic Ocean walls the east. The Little Pee Dee and Lumber Rivers form the western boundary. North Carolina sits across the top. The Waccam...

Image: LittleT889 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Horry County, South Carolina: The Largest in the State

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. Horry County covers 1,254 square miles — more land area than any other county in South Carolina. The highest point reaches only 124 feet above sea level, which means the geography is mostly subtle: pine flatwoods, blackwater swamps, sandhills, and the long sweep of beach along th...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Horry County, South Carolina: The Bronze Hero

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pollinator at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. On October 29, 2012, the county finally raised a sculpture of the man whose name it had carried for two centuries. The bronze bust of Peter Horry, designed by artist Garland Weeks, sits inside the Horry County Government and Justice Center. Coastal Monument of Conway built the st...

Image: Pollinator at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Horry County, South Carolina: From Tobacco to Tourism

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. For most of the 20th century, Horry County's economy meant tobacco and beachfront. After 1970, the population grew more than fourfold, as retirees and second-home buyers discovered the Grand Strand. Myrtle Beach became the largest city in the county, drawing tens of millions of v...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Horry County, South Carolina: Edges and Margins

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pubdog, Public domain. Horry has always been a county of edges. The Atlantic edge, where the beach towns stretch from Cherry Grove to Garden City. The river edge, where blackwater meets pine forest in places like Bucksport and Galivants Ferry. The state edge, where the Lumber River carries the North Ca...

Image: Pubdog | Public domain