#61: Grand hotels of Myrtle Beach, the Washington Park Racetrack, and the Historic Rock Hill antique car show
For South Carolina history lovers far and wide! Enjoy weekly SC history and upcoming SC historical events
Welcome to the first 100 days of the South Carolina History Newsletter! My name is Kate Fowler and I live in Greenville, SC. I have a 9-5 job in marketing, and outside of work, have a deep love of history. I started this newsletter as a passion project to learn more about our beautiful state and build a community of fellow SC history lovers along the way! To establish a foundation for the newsletter and to grow my expertise on a wide variety of South Carolina historical topics, this past February I challenged myself to post 100 newsletters in 100 days. After this coming May 20th, the newsletter will become weekly. Thank you for joining the journey!
Dear reader,
Welcome to Newsletter #60 of The South Carolina History Newsletter! I’m so happy you’re here.
After the seriousness of yesterday’s newsletter, I want to lighten the mood. I decided to delve into the history of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina’s iconic beach city. Both SC History Fun Fact Sections are about historic Myrtle Beach attractions. I wish they were all still in existence today!
Here’s a little welcome/update audio message:
As always, I’d like to also extend a special welcome to the following new free subscribers — woohoo! Thank you for subscribing.
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I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter, and as always, please feel free to reply to this email with your ideas and suggestions on South Carolina history you’d like to learn more about. I’m only a click away.
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And now, let’s learn some South Carolina history!
Yours truly,
Kate
(Writing from Greenville, SC)
➳ Featured SC History Event
Please enjoy our featured SC History Event below, and click here to visit my SC History Events Calendar that organizes all the upcoming SC history events I have discovered. Please let me know if you’d like to add an event to the calendar! Reply to this email or send me a note at schistorynewsletter@gmail.com.
Sunday, April 14th, 1:00 - 4:00 pm | “Historic Rock Hill’s Antique Car Show & Craft Fair” | The White Home | Rock Hill, SC | Members & Children are FREE and $10 tickets can be purchased at the door
“Come join us at Historic Rock Hill's Antique Car Show and Craft Fair event during the city's Come-See-Me festival! Join us at the historic White Home for a day of fun, food, and history. You'll get to explore classic automobiles from all eras, shop from unique vendors, and enjoy the spirit of the local community. Plus, your ticket includes a self-guided tour of The White Home, a must-see historic site in Rock Hill!”
➳ SC History Fun Facts
I.
Did you know that the now-demolished grand hotels — The Seaside Inn and Ocean Forest Hotel in Myrtle Beach — helped put the city on the map as one of the most exciting resort destinations in America?
Listen to this section in the mini audio voiceover below!
The Seaside Inn
(Note from Kate: I couldn’t find a lot of information on this hotel, but was so enamored of its photo below that I had to report at least the small bits of information I did find)
Until the 1900s, the beaches of Horry County were virtually uninhabited due to the county's “geographical inaccessibility and poor economy.”
Near the turn of the century, the Burroughs & Collins Company, “a timber and turpentine firm with extensive beachfront holdings,” began developing the Myrtle Beach area as a resort.
In 1901, the company built Myrtle Beach's first hotel, the Seaside Inn.
At that time, oceanfront lots “sold for $25, and buyers received an extra lot if they built a house valued at $500 or more.”
The hotel was later demolished in the late 1920s. (I wasn’t able to find out why!)
The Ocean Forest Hotel
It was the first of its kind on the “Grand Strand” and helped turn Myrtle Beach into a vacation town.
The once glamorous Ocean Forest Hotel (also known as the “million dollar hotel”) is remembered fondly by Myrtle Beach locals as being an iconic destination for both the local community and visitors alike.
Local photographer Jack Thompson says, “That building is what started Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach was actually a little fishing village when the Woodside brothers came and bought Myrtle Beach and started building the Ocean Forest [Hotel]…In that process, they had 500 workers who came from everywhere.”
Prior to the opening of the Ocean Forest Hotel in 1930, there was “only one store and less than 200 residents living in the village of Myrtle Beach.”
The Ocean Forest Hotel was just one part of the grand vision of John T. Woodside, who was a textile magnate from Greenville, SC. Woodside and his partners (a few were his brothers) envisioned a beautiful seaside development and resort destination. They wanted to name the development “Arcady” after a place in ancient Greece “where men found peace and solitude in their natural environment.”
In 1925, Woodside and his partners acquired 66,000 breathtaking acres on Myrtle Beach, with the hotel and golf course finished in 1928.
The Ocean Forest Hotel was a white brick 10-story hotel was designed by the well-known Chicago architect Raymond Hood (designer of Rockefeller Center), and “featured 202 ventilated guest rooms, indoor and outdoor pools, a lighthouse spire, salt or fresh running water, colonnaded marble verandas and magnificent Georgian ballrooms tinseled with 20-foot chandeliers crafted by Europe’s finest crystal makers.”
It cost approximately $1 million to build and featured the 10-story main tower with two 5-story wings.
The hotel also “boasted oceanfront dining, outdoor entertainment and men’s and women’s exercise clubs with a fully-equipped with a spa, steam boxes, free weights, pulleys, cables, and pommel horses. They had maple bowling lanes and indoor and outdoor pools. The ground-floor arcade offered men’s and ladies’ clothiers, a coffee shop, a jewelry store, a drug store and salons.”
Each hotel bathroom was equipped with hot, cold, and saltwater tub spigots, which was very luxurious in the 1920s.
Topping off the white wedding-cake-esque design was a lighthouse spire used for coastal navigation. The tower was also the site of Myrtle Beach’s “first radio station, as well as a reputed gambling venue.”
Guests and members enjoyed the beautiful Robert White-designed 27-hole golf course, which was the first golf course in Myrtle Beach.
Also overlooking the ocean, an open-air amphitheater was built, which locals called the “Marine Patio.” Back in its heyday, locals savored the dance music of all the famous big bands: “Carmichael, Dorsey, Basie, Spike Jones, Herman, Harry James, with the silvery ocean as a romantic backdrop.”
Myrtle Beach local Louise Springs Crews remembers:
"We'd go up there dancing. They had on the outside, the south side of the building, they had what you call the Ocean Forest Marine Patio…We'd get three or four couples and go up there when they had main entertainment; the only one I remember right now is Nancy Sinatra.”
The Ocean Forest Hotel also had a beautiful ballroom, dining room, convention room and a theater. Many locals visited the hotel for parties, conventions or a night out.
Near the golf course was an open-beam cypress horse stable.
The hotel also boasted “red-clay tennis courts, a skeet and trap range, archery, miles of hiking, duck and quail hunting (bird dogs provided), riding trails and, of course, 14 miles of sailing, sunning and fishing along a pristine oceanfront lined with sculpted oaks, myrtles and colorful cabanas.”
The 1929, the stock market crash brought a devastating financial blow to John Woodside and his partners. They lost their 6 Greenville textile mills, including “the largest textile mill under one roof in the entire world, an operation with 112,000 spindles.” They were financially ruined, and lost ownership of their magnificent hotel and their dream for Arcady.
The hotel changed ownership several times through the decades, and unfortunately the successive owners did not succeed in keeping the grand structure updated and up to code.
By the 1970s, the hotel had become too expensive to operate, and then on Friday the 13th of September 1974, nearly 50 years after its iconic construction, the Ocean Forest Hotel was demolished.
Even the head of the demolition company, Mr. Hudgins, admitted, “Simply a shame this hotel wasn’t renovated. It was the finest construction I’d ever investigated.”
Myrtle Beach local Wilson Springs said, "They tried and tried to figure out some way to preserve it, but the engineers all said to bring it up to city code, your plumbing and your wiring, they said it was almost impossible.”
While the memory of the hotel remains, there are also still physical signs of the Ocean Forest Hotel around town. The Ocean Forest Golf Course lives on as the Pine Lakes Country Club, and the roundabout so famously pictured in front of the hotel is still a part of the city's streets, but now in a residential area with homes built around it.
Myrtle Beach restauranteur Dino Thompson has also said, “All that’s left of what shoulda been our Breakers, our Greenbrier, our Fairmont, our Plaza Hotel…are just a few artifacts, some postcards, concrete roads, the Pine Lakes Golf Course and pangs of what mighta been, coulda been, shoulda been.”
Sources:
"Myrtle Beach History: A Brief Overview." Accessed on April 11, 2024. https://www.myrtlebeach.com/history/
Thompson, Dino. "Remembering Myrtle Beach's Ocean Forest Hotel." Grand Strand Magazine, Dec. 2019. Accessed on April 11, 2024. https://grandstrandmag.com/feature/remembering_myrtle_beachs_ocean_forest_hotel.
"Ocean Forest Hotel helped turn Myrtle Beach into a vacation town.” Accessed on April 11, 2024. www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/article282470193.html
"Remembering Myrtle Beach's first high rise, the Ocean Forest Hotel." WMBF News, Accessed on April 11, 2024. www.wmbfnews.com/story/23529146/remembering-myrtle-beach-first-high-rise-the-ocean-forest-hotel/.
Cardinal, Tommy. "It happened in Horry: Ocean Forest Hotel lives on through stories." My Horry News, 28 Jan. 2024. Accessed April 11, 2024. www.myhorrynews.com/news/it-happened-in-horry-ocean-forest-hotel-lives-on-through-stories/article_8cecc2b4-bb9f-11ee-80c2-4b4c4bd24b15.html.
"Pine Lakes Country Club." Pine Lakes Country Club, Accessed April 11, 2024. myrtlebeachworldamateur.com/pine-lakes-country-club/#:~:text=Pine%20Lakes%20Country%20Club%2C%20Myrtle,Andrews%2C%20Scotland%20native%20Robert%20White.
II.
Did you know that Myrtle Beach also once had a 5,200 seat horse-racing track?
With the opening of the Ocean Forest Hotel in the late 1920s (which we just discussed above), Myrtle Beach seemed destined to become a resort city for “an urbane and sophisticated international crowd.”
Early developers believed these new visitors would be looking for other types of entertainment in addition to the beaches, golf courses, and tennis courts. The Washington Park Racetrack was built to be an additional “high-end amusement” for Myrtle Beach locals and visitors alike.
Washington Park Racetrack opened in 1938 on the northeastern corner of Oak Street and 21st Avenue North, and featured horse-drawn harness racing.
The park featured a 5,200-seat grandstand and a one-and-a-half-mile, wooden-railed course.
The grandstands offered beautiful views not only of the track but of the ocean as well.
Horse racing and betting continued at Washington Park until 1947, when the state “ruled against that form of gambling” and horse-racing had to be shut down.
Even though the Washington Park Racetrack no longer exists, a “vegetal outline of part of the track is still visible at the site of the Wells Fargo Bank on Oak Street in Myrtle Beach.”
Sources:
"Myrtle Beach History: A Brief Overview." https://www.myrtlebeach.com/history/. Accessed on April 10, 2024.
“Myrtle Beach City Government.” Facebook. Accessed April 11, 2024. www.facebook.com/myrtlebeachcitygovernment.
Simmons, Rick. "Lost Landmarks." Grand Strand Magazine, Oct. 2013. Accessed April 11, 2024. Magazinegrandstrandmag.com/feature/lost_landmarks.
➳ Quote from an SC historical figure
“We miss it because it was the biggest, grandest thing at Myrtle Beach…We gave directions by it. It was our Taj Mahal.”
— Dino Thompson, Myrtle Beach restauranteur, on the memory of the Ocean Forest Hotel
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