The Sandy Shores of Myrtle Beach

This 60-mile-long beach is called the Grand Strand and stretches from Georgetown right up to the North Carolina border. At its heart is South Carolina's most famous coastal town, Myrtle Beach. It's home to just 30,000 winter residents, but to hundreds of thousands during the summer months. They turn this sleepy winter town into a vacation mecca, packing high-end hotels and golf courses and campgrounds. The pace of development on this stretch of beach has been rapid. Just over a century ago, it was largely uninhabited, and for good reason. Up until the end of the 19th century, swamps made it hard to even get to the coast, and sandy soil conditions and low crop yields made farming here difficult. To top it off, storms battered the beach, and the area remained largely uninhabited. That is, until a lumber baron arrived with a vision that would transform miles of pristine coastline into the popular towns and beaches they are today. It started after the Civil War, when a businessman named F.G. Burroughs built a lumber mill nearby. Burroughs logged the longleaf pine trees that still grow abundantly here. He started laying railroad tracks across the swamp to get his timber onto ships and transported up the East Coast. Burroughs died before the tracks were completed, but his sons finished his work. Soon, vacationers were hitching rides on the lumber trains to reach the beach. In 1901, the budding resort had its very first hotel, the Seaside Inn. Long since demolished, the inn was at the center of what's now downtown. That same year, a contest was held to give the up-and-coming town a proper name. Burroughs' widow proposed naming it after the myrtle evergreen shrub that grew along the shore. She won the contest, and the name Myrtle Beach was born. At the turn of the century, empty lots here were purportedly sold for just $25 apiece. Today, they can be worth millions, even though the beach they're on is shrinking. Studies are showing that parts of the Grand Strand lose up to eight inches of beach every year to erosion. Every few years, the state spends tens of millions of dollars to replenish the beach. Offshore, a dredge gathers sand from the bottom of the sea and sends it to a pumping station. Here, giant pumps deliver the slurry of sand to shore via steel pipes. Once it arrives, bulldozers spread the new sand and shape the beach. An amphibious tripod armed with GPS, known as the CRAB, allows surveyors to map the shoreline and carefully determine how much new sand is needed. The replenished beaches cause storm surges to break safely far away from shore, protecting the beachfront property.