Events

The Horry County Museum and the AVX Foundation present a lecture by State Underwater Archaeologist Jim Spirek on the History and Recovery of the CSS Pee Dee on July 16th at 1 PM.
In 2019, three cannons from the CSS Pee Dee were installed between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs building and the National Cemetery in Florence, South Carolina. The cannons were jettisoned at the Mars Bluff Naval Yard and the gunboat scuttled in the Great Pee Dee River during the waning days of the American Civil War. The presence of these cannons represents the culmination of several decades of searching, discovering, recovering and conserving them for public display. Situated between these two military edifices, the display was not intended as a memorial, but rather to reflect on the sacrifices made by those in the armed services and of the complexity of human conflict. The project to document and recover the cannons relied on private and public partnerships. This presentation will provide historical background and archaeological findings from the investigations of the cannons, CSS Pee Dee, and the Mars Bluff Naval Yard.
James Spirek, the State Underwater Archaeologist for South Carolina, works at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Employed there since 1996 and holding his current position since 2012, Jim’s responsibilities include managing and studying the maritime archaeological legacy residing in the lakes, rivers, and coastal waters of South Carolina. Jim has participated in numerous projects documenting a diverse range of sunken prehistoric and historic watercraft, Colonial and Native American sites, Civil War warships and blockade runners, and other underwater archaeological remains in state waters. He is co-editor of Submerged Cultural Resource Management: Preserving and Interpreting Our Sunken Maritime Heritage, and a co-contributor to Archaeology in South Carolina: Exploring the Hidden Heritage of the Palmetto State, Florida’s Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck, and Guns of the Pee Dee: The Cannon Recovery. Jim received his B.A. in History from George Mason University in 1987 and his M.A. in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University in 1993.
The program will be held on July 16th at 1 PM in the McCown Auditorium located at 805 Main Street, Conway SC. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 843-915-5320 or email hcgmuseum@horrycounty.org. To view a full list of programs, visit our website at www.horrycountymuseum.org.

The 2022 Horry County Museum Documentary Film Series continues a documentary by South Carolina ETV on inductees from the Revolutionary War Era into the South Carolina Hall of Fame. Established in 1973, The South Carolina Hall of Fame, located in Myrtle Beach, inducts one deceased and one contemporary honoree each year. It […]

“Steven Smith: Francis Marion and the Snow’s Island Community: Myth, History and Archaeology” The Horry County Museum and the AVX Foundation present a lecture by Steven Smith on July 23rd on his book, Francis Marion and the Snow’s Island Community: Myth, History and Archaeology. Loyalist Colonel Robert Gray described South Carolina as […]

“Master Artists Concert Series Performance at the Horry County Museum” The Horry County Museum and Varna International will host a free concert featuring artists from The Master Artists Concert Series, part of Muzika! The Grand Strand Music Festival, on Saturday, July 23rd at 7:30 PM. The public is invited to join us […]

The 2022 Horry County Museum Documentary Film Series continues a documentary by South Carolina ETV on inductees from the Antebellum Era into the South Carolina Hall of Fame. Established in 1973, The South Carolina Hall of Fame, located in Myrtle Beach, inducts one deceased and one contemporary honoree each year. It is […]

Join Horry County Museum’s Technical Assistant Abigail Geedy on July 30th at 1 PM as she discusses the South Carolina Dispensary System and Prohibition in the state. By the early 1890s, many assumed South Carolina was on the verge of declaring prohibition, but in 1892 the dispensary system passed as an alternative. It […]

The 2022 Horry County Museum Documentary Film Series continues with The Last Auction, part of the Carolina Stories Series from ETV. For more than 100 years Mullins was the major tobacco market for South Carolina. Since 1997, the tobacco allotment has been cut in half, textile manufacturers have moved away and Mullins, a town of 5,000 has lost more than 1,200 jobs. Although The Last Auction is the story of a small South Carolina town, the issues it explores: agricultural mechanization, rural unemployment, exodus of youth from small towns, and loss of manufacturing jobs, are of national significance.
The film is free to the public and will be shown at 1:00 PM, Wednesday, August 3rd, at the Horry County Museum, located at 805 Main Street in Conway.
The Horry County Museum Documentary Film Matinees will continue throughout 2022. For a list of films, visit our website at www.horrycountymuseum.org. For more information, call the Horry County Museum at 843-915-5320 or e-mail hcgmuseum@horrycounty.org.

Experience life on the ‘one horse family farm’ from 1900-1955 at the L.W. Paul Living History Farm. For much of the 20th century, tobacco was the main cash crop for Horry County and the Pee Dee Region. During the late summer, leaves would be gathered and taken to the barn to be strung and cured, this process required participation from all family members, down to young children, whose job would be to hand the tobacco leaves to a stringer. Join us to relive this experience on Tobacco Heritage Day, Saturday, August 6th, from 9:00 AM until 12:00 PM. Demonstrations will include gathering, hand tying and stringing tobacco, and a variety of other farm activities.
The L.W. Paul Living History Farm is located at the corner of Hwy 701 North and Harris Short Cut Road in Conway, SC. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call the L.W. Paul Living History Farm at 843-915-5321 or email the Horry County Museum at hcgmuseum@horrycounty.org. For a full list of programs, visit our website at www.horrycountymuseum.org.