Conway, SC, Horry County's River Town: The Oaks, the Old Courthouse, Riverfest and Buying a Home Inside or Outside the City

Every October, the oaks over Main Street in Conway fill up with orange plastic pumpkins. City employees hung about 500 of the trick-or-treat buckets in the trees in 2019, and these days there are thousands. For the month, Conway calls itself the City of Halloween. Southern Living tells the story in "This City in South Carolina Changes Its Name Every October,". Visit Myrtle Beach's Halloween guide adds storyteller walking tours, a Halloween golf-cart parade and the Graveyard Grand Prix, a coffin race on Laurel Street. Long before the pumpkins, the town went by two other names, Kingston and then Conwayborough.

Conway is the Horry County seat, a river town of about 30,600 people on the Waccamaw River and home to Coastal Carolina University, and plenty of homes with a Conway mailing address are outside the City of Conway. I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in South Carolina through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. I work from Bluffton, down the coast, and I wrote this for a client thinking about a home in Conway. I checked each fact here in a public source on October 16, 2026. Horry County's growth, its road programs, South Carolina's 4% legal-residence assessment for a home you live in, and the county's flood rules are already on my Myrtle Beach area page. This page covers what is particular to Conway.

Kingston, Conwayborough, then Conway

The town started out as Kingston, one of the townships in Royal Governor Robert Johnson's plan for the colony, and it was laid out in the 1730s. In 1801, when Kingston County became Horry District, the village was renamed Conwayborough for Gen. Robert Conway of the state militia. The Horry County Historical Society's marker says he deeded about 223 acres to the town in 1805. The General Assembly shortened the name to Conway in 1883.

Conway grew up as a river port. Through the 1860s and 1870s, lumber was one of the town's leading industries, and millions of feet of it went down the Waccamaw, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia. Conway is about halfway between the river's source in Columbus County, North Carolina, and its mouth at Georgetown. The railroad and the telegraph reached town in 1887, bright-leaf tobacco became a cash crop in the 1890s, and Conway merchants opened a tobacco market in 1899. The last surviving warehouses from the river trade make up the Waccamaw River Warehouse Historic District, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986.

F.G. Burroughs ran the Waccamaw Line of Steamers on the river until 1919, and the steamboat named for him was launched at Conway's own shipyard in 1898. Downtown, a mural of that boat is what MyHorryNews calls "the granddaddy of Conway's downtown murals."

The courthouse that became City Hall, and the bluff over the river

If you ever have business at Conway's City Hall, you'll be walking into the old Horry District courthouse. Maj. Russell Warren was hired to build it in March 1824, and the two-story brick building was finished by May 15, 1825. Its National Register record shows it listed on April 7, 1971. When the city renovated it in 2023, the work uncovered the original flooring and brick, as WMBF reported that January. For county business, the courts and county offices are in the Horry County Government & Justice Center at 1301 Second Avenue, built in 2001 and 2002.

Up on a bluff over the Waccamaw, the cemetery beside Kingston Presbyterian Church grew out of the old Kingston burying ground, which dates to about 1737. Burials there ran until 1909, and the Beaty family plot is known for its Victorian gravestone art. A Presbyterian congregation was meeting in Kingston by 1756. The Historical Society's marker for the church says an association formed in 1857 to revive it, and the Greek Revival church standing there now went up in 1858.

Conway's tree ordinance and the oaks on your lot

Conway has built some of its roads around its trees. MyHorryNews reported that the city calls those trees its "oldest citizens" and protects them under a Tree Preservation Ordinance. To take a protected tree down, you need a permit, and the city arborist weighs eight conditions, such as whether the tree is dead, hazardous, diseased beyond treatment or damaging a structure with its roots.

In 2021, MyHorryNews quoted the city's website on which trees are protected. Every oak 14 inches or more across the trunk, measured at about chest height, was on that list. So were American holly, southern magnolia, red maple, bald cypress, river birch and sycamore at 8 inches, and flowering dogwood, crape myrtle and redbud at 4 inches. An owner who cuts one without a permit can be required to replace it or pay its market value, which one Conway family learned in 2015.

If the home you love has big oaks on the lot, the ordinance covers those trees too. Before you plan a pool, an addition or a wider driveway, I would ask the City for the current version of the ordinance, since those thresholds are from 2021, and talk with the city arborist about where you could build.

Downtown, the Riverwalk and the farm on Harris Short Cut Road

Conway was one of the four towns that started Main Street South Carolina in 1986, along with Aiken, Beaufort and Georgetown. In June 2011, the downtown group left the state program and became Conway Downtown Alive, at 428 Main Street. In September 2025, HGTV put Conway on its list of 40 "Most Charming Small Downtowns" in the country, for its historic district, the Riverwalk, its food, its murals and its Halloween, as WMBF reported. The Conway Crawl is a recurring downtown night with live music and stores open late.

The Horry County Museum at 805 Main Street is free, and it keeps a freshwater aquarium of the river's own fish and wildlife. Out on Harris Short Cut Road, the L.W. Paul Living History Farm recreates a one-horse Horry County farm from 1900 to 1955, also free. The county's Heritage & Research Library at 1008 Fifth Avenue is the place for local history and family records. At the Conway Marina end of the Riverwalk, Riverfront Park at 100 Second Avenue has shelters you can use first come, first served.

The county keeps public landings at Lee's Landing, upstream at 485 River Road, at Pitch Landing below town, and at Bucksville Landing, on the old Bucksville shipyard site at 500 Landing Road. In town, The Oasis outdoor pool is at Smith Jones Park, and at Collins Park on 16th Avenue the library swaps out the books on the story walk every quarter.

Riverfest in June, the market under the bridge and a parade older than 75 years

Conway Riverfest is the town's longest-running festival. WMBF covered the 46th on Saturday, June 27, 2026, the weekend before the Fourth. It opened with the Paddle Battle river race at 10 in the morning and a golf-cart parade at 11:30, and it ended with fireworks at 9:30 that night. For the nation's 250th, there was an American Revolution re-encampment on the town green.

On Saturday mornings in season, the Conway Farmers Market sets up under the Main Street Bridge from 8 to 1, with 20 or more vendors, and the state Department of Agriculture's listing has it running into October. Christmas downtown starts with the City of Conway's tree lighting on Thursday, December 3, 2026, at 6 p.m., at Main Street and Third Avenue. The Conway Chamber of Commerce Christmas Parade follows on Saturday, December 12, at 10 a.m., and the Chamber has put it on for more than 75 years.

Coastal Carolina, HGTC and Brooks Stadium

A home in Conway puts you in a college town. Coastal Carolina University says on its own site that it is within the city limits of Conway, on land donated in 1961 by Burroughs Timber Company and International Paper. Its teams are the Chanticleers, and football is at Brooks Stadium, named for Bob Brooks, who gave $2 million. Since an expansion from 2017 to 2019, it holds about 20,000. In September 2025, the first two home games drew two of the three biggest crowds in the stadium's history, as WMBF reported.

Horry-Georgetown Technical College is based in Conway too. Part of the county's 1% education sales tax, which voters renewed in November 2022 to run through 2039, goes to these two schools: 13.3% to Coastal Carolina and 6.7% to HGTC.

Conway Medical Center and the ER going up on Church Street

Conway Medical Center is at 300 Singleton Ridge Road, and its own employer profile lists 210 inpatient beds and more than 1,500 staff. On Church Street, Grand Strand Health broke ground on Thursday, December 11, 2025, for the Rivertown Emergency Room at 1720 Church Street, with entrances off US 501 and Mill Pond Road. MyHorryNews reported a $17 million, 10,000-square-foot building with at least 10 exam rooms, a lab, X-ray, CT and ultrasound, open around the clock. It was expected to open in September 2026, so please check with Grand Strand Health that it is open before you count on it as your nearest ER.

The Coastal Centre rebuild, Warden Station and Brookhaven

The old Coastal Centre strip mall at Church Street and 16th Avenue is being rebuilt. Rise Partners of Chattanooga bought the 31 acres in October 2024 for $14 million, and The Post and Courier reported a project of about $60 million and 230,000 square feet, anchored by a Walmart Neighborhood Market. HomeGoods opened there in spring 2026. Chipotle, Parker's Kitchen and Burlington have been announced, and more stores are expected by the end of 2026. J Peters Grill & Bar is coming too.

The two biggest new neighborhoods came into the city by annexation, which is a city taking land into its limits. In January 2024, City Council unanimously approved annexing about 1,700 to 1,800 acres off Pitch Landing Road and US 701 South for Warden Station. The plan calls for 3,318 homes over 25 years: 1,380 single-family homes, 1,018 townhomes and 920 multifamily units. About 500 acres of it are set aside for the city, with pickleball, a playground, parking and a connection to a Wildlife Refuge Trail. The developer also agreed that no homes would be built in flood zones. I could not find a 2026 report on construction or a builder there.

Brookhaven is on US 378 at Juniper Bay Road. In August 2024, the City gave final approval to annexing and rezoning 446 acres there for 1,261 homes, as MyHorryNews reported. It was planned as Lennar's Tributary and is expected to be built by D.R. Horton under the Brookhaven name. Both neighborhoods were annexed, so their homes will be inside the City of Conway.

A new ramp downtown and a river crossing still being studied

You will hear SC 22 called the Conway Bypass. The US 501 Bypass is a different road, and it is the one getting a new ramp. RIDE 4, Horry County's current voter-approved road program, lists a $53 million off-ramp from the US 501 Bypass northbound to Third Avenue and Marina Drive. It also lists a new bridge and highway across the Waccamaw near Conway at $860 million. The County's project page says a study will decide the final location, and the work has not started.

That crossing has been talked about for years. An earlier version, called the Busbee Bypass, would have run from US 701 South across the river to SC 544, and WMBF reported that the Conway Chamber started a petition for it in January 2020. If you are looking at a home off US 701 South or near the river, the County's project page is the place to watch for the route.

Inside or outside the Conway city limits

ZIP code 29526 had about 51,400 people at the 2020 census, by zip-codes.com's count. The whole City of Conway had 30,627 even five years later, on July 1, 2025, by the Census Bureau's estimate. So the Conway name on an envelope reaches well past the city limits. The Conway area numbers in the local Realtor association's market report are counted by ZIP code too, ZIPs 29526 and 29527.

Some neighborhoods with Conway addresses are inside the City of Conway limits and some are outside them. Wild Wing Plantation, off US 501, uses Conway addresses, and listing descriptions disagree on whether it is inside the city. Because city water outside the limits can come with an agreement to be annexed later (more on that below), the City can take in land one lot at a time, so two homes on the same street can be on different sides of the city limits. Newer communities with Conway addresses include Dream Finders' Rivertown Landing, Spring Oaks and Shaftesbury Meadows and Great Southern Homes' Briarfield. I found no public source saying whether they are inside the city, so I would ask the builder for the parcel's tax district.

The surest check is the parcel's tax district on the Horry County property record, or a call to the City of Conway. If you send me the address, I'll pull it up with you.

The tax bill on a Conway home

Inside the City of Conway, the tax bill carries a city line on top of the two lines every Conway address pays, Horry County's own 52.1 mills and the 10-mill school debt levy. A mill is one dollar of tax for every $1,000 of a home's assessed value. Conway's city line was 98.1 mills in 2025, by the South Carolina Association of Counties' table, the second-highest city rate in Horry County after Loris. The city's budget for the year that started July 1, 2026, as MyHorryNews reported it, raises that to a little over 100 mills, and I'd check the exact figure on the City's adopted ordinance. The same budget raised the city's solid waste collection fee from $32 to $33.

To put that in a home's terms, take the Conway area's median single-family price for 2026 through August, $311,788, from the same Realtor association report I mentioned above. On a home you live in, with the 4% legal-residence rate my Myrtle Beach page explains, the assessed value is 4% of the market value. Here that is about $12,472, so each mill adds about $12.47 a year. A city levy of about 100 mills comes to roughly $1,250 a year. An address outside the city has no city line. Its bill carries the county fire, fire apparatus and solid waste lines that apply in unincorporated Horry County, plus a stormwater fee of about $89. The figures for a particular home are on its own tax bill, and that bill is what I use when I run your payment.

The Waccamaw at flood stage

Flood stage on the Waccamaw at Conway is 11 feet. After Hurricane Matthew in October 2016, the Associated Press reported the river at 17.9 feet, a record at the time. Two years later, Hurricane Florence broke it. The river kept rising for more than a week after landfall, and a Waccamaw Riverkeeper presentation hosted by Coastal Carolina puts the crest at more than 21 feet on September 26, 2018. The AP reported nearly 1,000 homes and businesses flooded in and near the city.

Many of the Conway homes that took water in 2018 were outside FEMA's mapped flood hazard zones. WMBF reported that Florence affected 388 homes, most of them outside a flood zone, and that about 130 owners qualified for a buyout. The City's buyout program had started after Matthew. It offered 75% of a home's value from before Matthew, paid for largely with more than $11 million from FEMA. The lots it bought were cleared and kept as open ground, with no building allowed on them again. The hardest-hit area on the damage maps was off Sherwood Drive near Crabtree Swamp, and later coverage named Long Avenue as well.

On any Conway home, I would look at the FEMA flood zone, the elevation certificate if there is one, and whether the home took water in 2016 or 2018, and I would weigh all three together. FEMA's high-risk zone is called a Special Flood Hazard Area, and an elevation certificate is the surveyor's form that shows how high the home is built. Horry County's flood pages have a Flood Map App for checking an address. If the home is in the high-risk zone, flood insurance is required on your loan, and I include it in your payment. Outside that zone, a flood policy is your choice, and the 2018 record is a good reason to get a quote on the address before you settle on a price.

City water, inside the limits and out

The City of Conway runs the water and sewer system, and its lines reach well outside the city. In MyHorryNews's 2021 reporting, customers outside the city paid about double: $3.88 per 1,000 gallons of water against $1.94 inside, and $6.52 for sewer against $3.26. About 7,826 of more than 17,000 Conway water accounts were outside the city then. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the City's rate structure in 2001. For the year that started July 1, 2026, the city raised water rates 10% and sewer rates 3.3%, so please ask the City for its current schedule.

To get city water outside the limits, a landowner signs a restrictive covenant, an agreement recorded with the property that can bind it to being annexed later. The Post and Courier described how that works along US 501 in 2023. If the home you want is on city water but outside the city, I would ask your closing attorney whether a covenant like that is recorded on it.

From a Conway address to your monthly payment

The payment I qualify you on carries the tax lines for whichever side of the City of Conway's limits the home is on. It also carries your homeowners insurance, flood insurance if the home is in the high-risk zone, and association dues if the community has them. The water and sewer bill is not part of the mortgage payment. On city water outside the limits it runs higher, so you'll want to plan for that in your monthly budget. Horry County's 2026 conforming and FHA loan limits are in the box below this article, and they are the same inside the city and out.

Getting pre-approved in South Carolina covers what I'll ask you to provide and what the letter tells a seller. Once you are ready, you'll see pricing for your own scenario and choose a rate option. You can change that choice later, so pick the one that works best for you now. If you served, VA loans in South Carolina covers entitlement and the funding fee. If you already own in Conway, refinancing in South Carolina is where I'd start on your rate, and a cash-out refinance covers using your equity, maybe for an addition planned around the oaks. The statewide rules, including South Carolina's attorney closings, are on my South Carolina page.

Nothing on this page is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and none of it is tax advice. The Horry County Assessor sets the value and the tax rate class on a specific parcel, and the City of Conway decides whether a parcel is inside its limits, so please confirm both before you rely on them.

Common questions

Is Conway, SC part of Myrtle Beach?

Conway is its own city and the Horry County seat, on the Waccamaw River. It is part of the Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach metro area, which is the area the federal loan-limit tables use, so Horry County's conforming and FHA limits apply in Conway the same as on the oceanfront.

How do I know if a home with a Conway address is inside the city limits?

You can look up the parcel's tax district on the Horry County property record or call the City of Conway, and if you send me the address, I'll pull it up with you. ZIP code 29526 covers far more people than the city does, and the City can annex land one lot at a time, so two homes on the same street can be on different sides of the limits.

Why is Conway called the City of Halloween?

Each October the city takes on that name for the month. City employees hang thousands of trick-or-treat pumpkin buckets in the oaks on Main Street, up from about 500 in 2019. There are storyteller walking tours, a Halloween golf-cart parade and the Graveyard Grand Prix coffin races on Laurel Street.

Does the City of Conway charge more for water outside the city limits?

Yes. The City runs the water and sewer system both inside and outside its limits, and outside customers have paid about double the inside rate. Getting city water outside the limits can also mean signing a covenant that allows the City to annex the property later, so please ask your closing attorney whether one is recorded.

Did Conway flood in Hurricane Florence?

Yes. In September 2018 the Waccamaw at Conway crested more than 10 feet over its 11-foot flood stage, and many of the homes that took water were outside FEMA's mapped high-risk zones. On any Conway home, I would check the flood zone and the elevation certificate, and ask whether the home took water in 2016 or 2018.

Can I cut down an oak tree on my lot in Conway?

Inside the city, not without a permit if it is protected. As of the city's 2021 list, every oak 14 inches or more across the trunk is protected, along with several other species at smaller sizes, and the city arborist decides on a removal permit. Please ask the City for the current ordinance before you plan around a big tree.