10 things you might not know about South Carolina’s Hammock Coast®

10 things you might not know about South Carolina’s Hammock Coast®

The Hammock Coast®  may be South Carolina’s most beautiful secret. Odd to say it’s a secret, though, since the area boasts the oldest seaside resort in America, but when your neighbors to the north and south – Myrtle Beach and Charleston, respectively – are two of the Palmetto State’s tourism powerhouses, being somewhat of a secret may be the key to success.

The spectacular stretch of beaches on the Hammock Coast is full of history, fascinating ecology and folklore. Here are 10 facts about our favorite secret.

1. The name “Hammock Coast” is a fairly new nickname for the area on the South Carolina coast between the Grand Strand and Charleston. Georgetown County made the “Hammock Coast” its official tourism moniker in 2010. It is now a registered trademark.

But just one visit to the six relaxed and welcoming communities of the Hammock Coast – Georgetown, Murrells Inlet, southern Garden City, Pawleys Island, Litchfield Beach and Andrews – and you’ll see why the hammock is the perfect symbol for the area.

2. South Carolinians did not invent the hammock. That honor goes to people living in Central America 1,000 years ago, but South Carolinians, particularly those in Pawleys Island and the Hammock Coast, have certainly embraced it.

Some argue, though, that a South Carolinian perfected the hammock. In 1889, a riverboat captain named Joshua John Ward, frustrated with how hot and sticky traditional naval hammocks were on the humid South Carolina coast, set out to make a more comfortable design for hammocks. His creation, the Pawleys Island Hammock, is still made and sold in Pawleys Island today. When you picture a hammock, woven in cream-colored cotton rope in a wide-open lattice pattern with wooden stretcher bars at top and bottom, you’re imagining one of Ward’s creations.

3. The Hammock Coast is also home to dozens of hummocks. No, that’s not a typo. Not hammocks. Hummocks.

Hummocks are little, uninhabited, muddy islands that bump up from the tidal flats and marshes of the coast. Hummocks are not nearly as comfortable as hammocks.

4. The largest and oldest public sculpture garden in the United States is located in Murrells Inlet. Brookgreen Gardens, the creation and donation of Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington, is one of the most spectacular sculpture installations you’ll ever see. Showcasing Mrs. Huntington’s famous animal sculptures, as well as the work of other artists, it’s not be missed.

5. Atalaya Castle, the Huntingtons’ sprawling and haunting oceanfront home, had 30 rooms, including bear pens and outdoor and indoor studios, but no formal living room or any guest rooms. The castle is located across U.S. 17 from Brookgreen Gardens at Huntington Beach State Park, on land also donated by the Huntingtons.

6. What’s the connection between Fenway Park and the Hammock Coast? Tom Yawkey, longtime owner of the Boston Red Sox, made one of the largest land donations in South Carolina’s history to the state. He donated more than 20,000 acres along the Hammock Coast to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. The Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center is one of the hidden gems of this already spectacular area.

7. The town of Pawleys Island has a year-round population of only slightly more than 100 people. It claims to be the oldest seaside resort in America, and its popularity is on display year round. Permanent residents may only number around 100, but, in peak tourism months, the population balloons of new and longtime guests who find that this quiet island is an oasis.

Pawleys became a vacation destination, of sorts, in the 1700s when wealthy plantation owners left their rice farms and headed to the nearby sea. On Pawleys, they could feel the cool ocean breeze and get away from the heat and humidity of the inland plantations – and from the mosquitoes, too!

8. Georgetown claims to be one of the most haunted towns in America, but the most famous ghosts in the area “live” on Pawleys Island and Murrells Inlet. The Gray Man is said to appear on Pawleys right before a hurricane is set to strike the island, warning beachgoers about the impending storm, and Alice Flagg haunts the marsh and rooms of the Hermitage, her home, after dying of what many say was a broken heart.

9. The first European settlement in the United States was not in Florida at St. Augustine, or in Virginia at Jamestown, as many people think. It was actually right on the Hammock Coast. The Spanish settlement of San Miguel de Guadalupe was located just north of present-day Georgetown. The settlement, founded in 1526, lasted only about three months.

10. San Miguel de Guadalupe was also the site of the very first slave revolt in the continental United States. The African slaves brought by the Spanish revolted and joined the Native American tribes in the area. Their escapes led in part to the failure of the attempted settlement.

By Kerry Egan / South Carolina Parks, Recreation & Tourism