The Pavilion That Started the Grand Strand

The Pavilion That Started the Grand Strand

Before the boardwalk and the 100,000-person summer weeks, there was a lumber company, a railroad, and a pavilion. Burroughs and Collins owned the timberland, built a railroad to move lumber to the coast, then realized the coast itself — wide beaches, warm Gulf Stream water — was more valuable than the trees.

First pavilion built 1908. It became the anchor of sixty miles of continuous beachfront now called the Grand Strand. The Pavilion was rebuilt and beloved through multiple incarnations until its demolition in 2006, and its absence is still felt by locals who grew up with the shag dancing the floor made famous. The Carolina Shag — smooth, cool, partner dance developed in the 1940s when Black and white teenagers danced to R&B at the beach pavilions — is the official state dance. Fat Harold's Beach Club in North Myrtle Beach is where it still lives.

The Grand Strand's history is American beach culture: invented by a railroad, shaped by a dance, sustained by the conviction that a week at the beach is a right, not a luxury. The Pavilion is gone. The shag endures. On a summer night at Fat Harold's, couples who've been dancing since Eisenhower make it look effortless.