Just minutes from our Myrtle Beach Hotels, condos and oceanfront beach homes in Pawleys Isalnd is Georgetown, SC. Visitors can actually imagine riding in a horse-drawn open carriage down a long avenue of moss-draped live oaks, along the banks of a black river, that strolls up to the front door of a true Southern plantation house. Georgetown County and the Rice Museum are true relics of the Old South. Time moves at a different pace in this region. The tides, the wind, and spiney oaks mark time and earmark a time now long gone.

If your children have a sense of connecting, The Rice Museum is a great way of connecting with America's past. The Georgetown Rice Museum is located just 30 minutes south of our Pawleys Island Hotels. Locals know it as the town clock and your family can find it on 633 Front Street in the Old Market Building built in 1842. The Town Clock is a symbol of Georgetown County. Spend a day investigating dioramas, old maps, artifacts and other exhibits. Your family will gain a knowledge, understanding and an appreciation of the heritage of early America and our local society that was completely reliant on this one crop at that time.

In 1768, my father's family first moved to what would later become Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Our family had first arrived in America on a land grant from the king of England in 1637 for the town that would later become Surrey, Virginia.

1768 saw the beginnings of rapid growth for South Carolina's port city, Charleston. At that time, this South Carolina city rivaled its biggest port cousins in America, including New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Just north of Charleston, area farmers were beginning to realize the potential wealth involved in cultivating and growing rice. For our ports in Charleston and our region as a whole, rice was the king crop. The Georgetown area produced half of the entire rice grown in America by the early 1840s.

While my family largely concentrated on growing tobacco, it is true that from the late 1700s right into the reconstruction period of the South, the Georgetown area and the entire region known as the Low Country was almost completely dependent on the harvest and sale of rice.

For those who love learning about the Sea, the Maritime Museum Gallery is located in the Kaminski Hardware Building, just next door to the Town Clock. There you will find the oldest American Naval ship on exhibit, The Browns Ferry Vessel. Built in the early 1700's, this ship sank sometime in the year 1730. Not only is this the oldest ship on exhibit in our country, but it also predates all other American naval freighters by 50 years. The freighter is 50' long . This type of freighter was navigated along rivers and waterways up and down the coast during the 1700's. The Browns Ferry Freighter was discovered on the Black River in 1976. The ship was reconstructed and stored by the University of South Carolina. It has been on permanent display at the Maritime Museum since 1992. A seventeen minute film called The Garden of Gold is shown throughout the day at the Maritime Museum and it is a part of the Museum tour.

Art work from local artists is featured at the Kaminski Hardware Building at the Prevost Gallery and the Museum Gift Shop.

The Rice Museum building is graciously adorned by Lafayette Park with views from the banks of the Sampit River. Alongside the museums are more than fifty homes and structures that pre-date the Civil War. Admission includes both The Rice Museum, The Maritime Museum Gallery.

Georgetown Rice Museum
Intersection of Front and Screven Streets
P.O. Box 902
Georgetown, SC 29442
843-546-7423 [Map It]

Admissions
Adults...$5.00
Seniors (60+)...$4.00
Children/Students (12-21)...$2.00
Children under 12...free (accompanied by an adult)
Group Rates by prior arrangement

Hours
10:00 am to 4:30 pm
Monday-Saturday
Closed Sunday and Major Holidays