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Community History Archives

Community History Archive Partner

Chapin Memorial Library

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Explore this community history collection to discover the people, places, organizations, and events of Myrtle Beach.

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2Titles

Explore publications and collections from the past.

1946 to 2019Dates represented

See individual titles for available dates.

29,534Archive pages

Historical pages reported for this collection.

Explore local history

Discover the people, places, and stories of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Get to know Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in earlier years through yearbooks and annuals shared in the Chapin Memorial Library's digital archive. The archive includes 1937 through 1946 Yearbook and Yearbooks, with material from 1946 to 2019.

You can open the archive using the link below.
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  • Selected titles

    Chapin Memorial Library shares titles including “1937 through 1946 Yearbook” and “Yearbooks”.

  • Free and open access

    No subscription or payment required.

  • A closer look

    Yearbooks and annuals bring together the people and activities their editors chose to remember, offering a view of life within a particular year.

The pages of a yearbook or annual can connect individual lives with the activities and organizations that were part of their historical setting. A portrait, organization, or event can be a place to begin. Follow the year and page, then use another source to test a wider family or community connection. Explore the archive online for free, without a subscription.

Explore the collection

Titles in this collection

Explore 1937 through 1946 Yearbook and Yearbooks through 29,534 digitized pages, with material from 1946 to 2019. A partnership between Chapin Memorial Library and Advantage Archives makes this collection available. Some years or items may be missing between the dates shown.

A familiar name or place can be the beginning of a story. Explore the titles below to see where that connection leads.

1937 through 1946 Yearbook

74 pages in 1946

Yearbooks

29,460 pages from 1947 to 2019

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About the Archive

About the Chapin Memorial Library’s History & Community Archives

The Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, provides free and open access to both conventional library services and a rich local-history and genealogy archive—serving as an educational resource and outreach hub for residents, genealogists, researchers, and visitors seeking to explore the community’s collective history. In partnership with local and regional preservation efforts, the Library helps make historical newspapers, cemetery records, genealogical files, and other local primary sources discoverable and accessible, supporting “history as it happened.”

Chapin Memorial Library photo 1

Local History

Local History & Genealogy Collections

  • Historic Newspapers & Obituary Indexes — Through the Library’s “Digital Reel” database, past issues of regional and Myrtle Beach newspapers (such as *The Sun News*) are available for keyword search, covering decades of community life.
  • The Shirley Walker Boone South Carolina Room — A dedicated genealogical and state-history collection that includes Horry County cemetery records, county-wide historic place surveys, obituary indexes dating back to 1915, and supporting reference works for genealogical research (e.g. colonial records, will indexes, census abstracts).
  • Oral Histories & Community Narratives — Including the “Hearing Horry History” series, featuring interviews with longtime residents that document social, cultural and economic changes in Myrtle Beach and the surrounding region.
  • Local-History Vertical Files & Reference Collections — Pamphlets, maps, local civic records, historical surveys, and vertical-file materials that provide additional context for community history and heritage research.

Together, these collections form a portal to Myrtle Beach’s past — offering users access to cultural assets, local documents, personal memories, and genealogical resources. The archive supports research into family histories, community development, land and property changes, and social history of the region.

About the Library

About the Chapin Memorial Library

Chapin Memorial Library is located at 400 14th Avenue North, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577, and is the only city-owned public library in South Carolina. The library holds approximately 92,924 volumes and records around 160,015 circulations annually. It offers a wide range of services including public computers, Wi-Fi, eBooks and audiobooks, digital databases, meeting and study rooms, and extended lending collections — alongside its local-history and genealogy resources.

About the Archive

The History of Chapin Memorial Library & Its Archive Mission

The Library was originally established in 1939 with a modest collection of 501 books. During World War II, it relocated temporarily to the Chapin Company building as part of a government recreation program. In 1948, the Chapin Foundation provided funds for a new library building; the current facility opened June 1, 1949, at the corner of Kings Highway and 14th Avenue North. Over subsequent decades, the building has been expanded several times to accommodate growing collections and services.

About the Community

About Myrtle Beach, South Carolina & Local Context

Myrtle Beach, a coastal city in Horry County, has a rich history shaped by tourism, real-estate development, migration, and community growth. Over the decades, the region has seen dramatic changes — from early settlement and early tourism, through mid-20th century development, to its modern status as a major vacation and retirement destination. The Chapin Memorial Library’s local-history archive helps document those transformations through newspapers, oral histories, genealogical records, and public documents — offering users a snapshot of the changing face of Myrtle Beach and its people.

Local History

Did You Know?

  • The Library’s genealogy collection includes obituary and death-notice indexes dating back to at least 1915 — a crucial resource for family-history researchers.
  • The Library hosts a community group, the Grand Strand Genealogy Club, which meets monthly to help patrons with genealogical research, sharing expertise about local and regional history.
  • Through its “Digital Reel” initiative — funded by the Chapin Foundation — historic local newspapers have been digitized and made keyword searchable, helping to unlock decades of community records, events, obituaries, and local news for accessible online research.

Explore the full range of historical newspapers, genealogical resources, oral histories, and archival materials via the Digital Archives: Visit the Chapin Memorial Library Digital Archives .

More ways to explore and share local history

Research Guidance

Look beyond a name on the page

A name, class, or school activity connected with Myrtle Beach can lead to other pages from the same period. The yearbooks and annuals shared by the Chapin Memorial Library can help you follow a student or organization beyond one entry. Captions, activities, and nearby pages may add context when present, while each volume offers only a view of school or community life at that time. Read the surrounding pages as well as an individual entry. Captions, activities, and organizations can provide context when they are present in the volume.

When a promising lead runs out, return to the titles and dates shown for the collection, where available. Try another spelling, name, place, or nearby period connected with your question. Keep searches that did not help alongside useful findings; gaps in historical coverage can limit what any search reveals.

As you piece together a story from the past, note where each detail came from and why it matters. Include the title, date, and page or item reference. Mark uncertain identifications and unanswered questions so a promising connection does not become an unsupported fact.

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Community Partnership

Keeping local history a community resource

This community archive is made possible by the collaboration of the Chapin Memorial Library, its community, and Advantage Archives. Together, these partnerships preserve local sources and give people a way to explore, learn from, and share the history around them.

Advantage Archives covers ongoing archive hosting, storage, development, and maintenance. The institution and its community do not pay a subscription, seat license, annual support contract, or other recurring archive-service charge. Local history remains a community resource, not a subscription to maintain.

Would you like to see more of your community's history preserved and accessible? Start a conversation with your library, newspaper publisher, historical or genealogical society, museum, or school about the materials they would like to share and a possible partnership with Advantage Archives.

Learn about partnerships
Read All About It

Stories, research tips, and archive news

Read All About It connects archive research with the people and institutions preserving local history. Explore partner and community stories, project updates, research ideas, and perspectives on digitization, education, and working with primary sources. Use the articles as a starting point for your next question or a new way to share a discovery.

Newest published articles

March 18, 2025

It’s Your Community’s History, So Why Rent Something You Own?

We believe that history belongs to the communities where it was made - not locked behind paywalls or inaccessible due to budget restrictions. Subscription-based services and large content aggregators are generally more concerned with "content" and less concerned with the history that content contains. Their models typically involve a reoccurring charge for a plan that renews annually or licensing agreements with the library based on population served or circulation numbers. You are essentially Renting Access To YOUR History.
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