Do you recall these famed downtown Myrtle Beach businesses? They helped shape the city.
About two miles from downtown Myrtle Beach at the Ocean Woods Cemetery, Wilford Harrelson rests below a nondescript marker that gives no clue about the thousands of memories he helped create.
Not only was Harrelson the city’s first mayor, but in 1927 he opened Delta Drug Co., the Grand Strand’s first pharmacy inside the six-block Chapin Company complex, which closed its doors in 1992.
“I remember in our days in Myrtle Beach how much of our community business was simply showing up and dropping off or picking up,” Sandy Scrantom said of his childhood memories. “No money was transferred then. It was billed out to the parents/business . You never had to tell them who you were. They knew you. You knew and trusted them all.”
Chapin’s decades-long run as a premier one-stop shop destination in the city’s heart helped get Myrtle Beach’s downtown added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
In 1960, the then Myrtle Beach and Ocean Beach News lauded Chapin’s.
“The history of Chapin Company is the life story of Myrtle Beach, demonstrating the immense impact the store had on the community,” according to an excerpt included in the National Register application.
Edward’s 5-cent, 10-cent and $1 store carried a rich cultural legacy
By the time Edward Kronsberg opened his 819 N. Kings Highway shop in 1952, the College of Charleston-educated businessman had seven other branches running across the state, including in Conway.
“When the store opened in May 1952, it was described as “modern in every respect, including air conditioning, color-right lights, chrome display fixtures, and an open storefront,” a description in the National Register application states.
A Kronsberg grand opening was front-page news: an estimated 15,000 people attended the start of business at a Charleston store in 1949 according to the Jewish Merchant Project.
The Kozy Korner emerged as one of Myrtle Beach’s go-to eateries in the city’s early days
Anchoring 815 Main Street for nearly a century, the once-booming Kozy Korner restaurant still holds a place as one of the city’s most distinctive buildings with its flatiron shape. It was also one of the city’s first eateries to boast air conditioning.
Eventually, Kozy Korner would become Kings Kastle — Myrtle Beach’s first fast food joint. In the 1960s, the space was subdivided and used for retail including women’s clothing stores. It’s 8,220 square feet of retail space offers income sources and is zoned for commercial, mixed use and as art space.
Today, Kozy Korner is occupied by Willa’s Kitchen.
Main Street was also home to Helen Mates’ elegant formal wear business that’s being renovated as part of the city’s efforts to revive the Broadway Theater.
Her dress shop closed in 1970 after a 23-year run, just as the era of big box stores and super-sized malls was beginning to draw consumer attention away from the locally owned businesses that powered America’s urban economies for more than a century.
The headquarters of a former lumber company is on track to become an arts haven
In 1957, the Myrtle Beach Lumber Company opened at 801 Broadway Street, eventually expanding in 1968. Although it merged with Seacoast Building Centers in the early 1970s, the company was able to show how versatile the city’s economy could be. The brick building, with a flat roof and large street-facing windows also had a slanted sign common among mid-century architecture.
It also served as the long-time home of downtown instrument shop Star Music and today the 8,844-square-foot site falls under the city’s new ART zoning code:
As a year-round destination for both residents and visitors, the district’s primary uses are supported by a wide range of businesses that help to maintain a vibrant atmosphere. Building design is in harmony with the character of the area and establishes a continuity of pedestrian-oriented frontages between adjacent buildings,” the city’s zoning ordinance explains.
This story was originally published November 16, 2023 at 5:00 AM.