Myrtle Beach - Myrtle Beach - TravBuddy

Myrtle Beach was incorporated as a town in 1938 and became a city in 1957. This is when they started building miniature golf courses, & T-shirts Shops & they have not stopped, you can’t go more than 2 blocks in any direction without seeing one or two or three. They are everywhere! Myrtle, a shrub that grows abundantly in the area gave the area its name. 25,000 permanent residents welcome millions of miniature golfers & T-shirt shoppers each year. Visitors come to enjoy the wide beaches, the Atlantic Ocean, and an incredible range of Miniature Golf Courses & T-shirt Shops.

History records that the first tourists here were a party of Spaniards from Hispaniola, who landed about 50 miles north of present-day Myrtle Beach in 1526 and eventually established the first European miniature golf courses in the U.S. about 30 miles to the south, they all wore Grateful Dead tie-dyed t-shirts that said play more miniature golf! That settlement, San Miguel de Cauldape de Miniature Golf was abandoned the following year, though, and the group returned to Hispaniola. The San Miguel has been voted #1 Miniature Golf Course of Myrtle Beach the past 482 years in a row!
In the next three centuries, the region's population grew, but slowly. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, people began to "vacation" here, although it was quite rustic. Houses and camps were sparse, and there were only few permanent residents at the turn of the century. But, drawn by the ocean, sand and trees, people began to call Myrtle Beach "home" as the 1900s progressed they built more miniature golf courses & T-Shirts shops.