Georgetown

Georgetown, port city, seat of Georgetown county, eastern South Carolina, U.S. It lies near the Atlantic coast where the Great Pee Dee, Waccamaw, Black, and Sampit rivers enter Winyah Bay. An early Spanish settlement there (1526) was abandoned because of fever. The first English settlement on the site was made about 1700, and the community, formally established in 1734, was named for Britain’s King George II.

As a shipping point for indigo, rice, lumber, and naval supplies, Georgetown influenced the development of coastal South Carolina and has many historic landmarks. The marquis de Lafayette first landed on American soil (June 13, 1777) at nearby North Island. Occupied by the British during the American Revolution, the town was attacked several times by the American soldier Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox.” Historic structures include Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church (c. 1750), the Kaminski House (c. 1760), and the Old Market Building (c. 1842), now the site of a rice museum. Georgetown’s harbour, on the Intracoastal Waterway, has been developed as a deepwater port. Paper and steel wire products are important manufactures, and tourism (yachting and fishing) is an economic asset. Nearby is Hopsewee Plantation (c. 1740), a restored rice plantation. Also near are the Brookgreen Gardens, with more than 500 pieces of sculpture mounted in the gardens of a former rice-and-indigo plantation that includes a wildlife park. A campus of Horry-Georgetown Technical College (1966) is in Georgetown. Inc. town, 1805; city, 1892. Pop. (2000) 8,950; (2010) 9,163.