Beth Edwards couldn’t have guessed that she would meet her future husband when she snuck out of her Charlotte, North Carolina, home one weekend and traveled to Myrtle Beach with her friend in the summer of 1979.

The young women went to the Myrtle Beach Pavilion, where they rode the Ferris Wheel. It was there that Edwards met Chris, a Pavilion worker who offered to take her out for dinner at a nearby hamburger joint.

About a month later, Beth and Chris were married.

The Conway couple aren’t the only ones who met their mates among the rides, arcade or dancing at Magic Attic at the Pavilion.

Their stories are fitting for a place once called the “beating heart” of Myrtle Beach.

The Pavilion may very well be one of the most talked about sites in Myrtle Beach. It was a coming-of-age place where screams of riders and the smell of salt air and suntan lotion wafted throughout the park each summer.

When the amusement park was finally closed in 2006 and later torn down, it left a void for both residents and visitors.

“We had a lot of good times there,” Beth Edwards said. “When they were tearing it down, that just broke our hearts.”

A ‘small’ ode to amusement park

Myrtle Beach resident Ken McMichael’s love of the Pavilion has been transformed into miniature form.

McMichael has spent years recreating the amusement park. There’s the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Scrambler and even the carousel. Many of the elements are motorized to show what the rides looked like when they were in operation.

In addition to the details, such as people in the park and vehicles in the parking lot, McMichael also painted a backdrop on the wall that shows blue skies, clouds, the boardwalk and the ocean.

The 59-year-old has the display set up on tables at his home. There’s also a framed picture of the Pavilion on his wall.

It’s McMichael’s ode to the place where his parents took him when he was little and later worked at during the ‘80s.

“That was something I always looked forward to,” McMichael said about going to the Pavilion.

McMichael, whose family moved to Myrtle Beach in 1973, said he still goes down to the area where the amusement park once stood.

“It sickens me to my stomach,” he said about the Pavilion’s demise. “It’s a big, blank void.”

McMichael has always worked on miniatures and decided about eight years ago to go with the Pavilion amusement park theme.

He uses pictures and his memory in making the display, adding his own art twist to the scene.

“I’m always changing things around,” McMichael said.

Pavilion one of 3 over the decades

The Myrtle Beach Pavilion amusement park was built in 1948 when Myrtle Beach Farms signed an agreement with a traveling carnival that made its home on the west side of Ocean Boulevard.

In 1949, the new Myrtle Beach Pavilion building officially opened on the east side of the street, sporting a large wooden dance floor located on the second floor, along with a stage and grandstrands. A bath house allowed for the daily rental of swimsuits for beach visitors.

But this wasn’t the first pavilion located in the Myrtle Beach area.

The first pavilion was a one-story structure built by the development company Burroughs and Collins in 1908 as part of the Seaside Inn, according to SC Picture Project. The pavilion later burned but was rebuilt in 1923.

The pavilion burned a second time in 1944 before again being rebuilt in 1949, this time of concrete.

Over the years, Ocean Boulevard near the Pavilion, owned by Burroughs & Chapin, became a hot spot for cruising the strip and going to the dance hall that played host to shag dances and concerts from music groups and national acts.

‘That place used to be packed’

Beth Edwards was 17 when she met 21-year-old Chris, a ride operator at the Pavilion, and was giving another worker a break when he spotted Beth and her friend getting off the Ferris Wheel.

Beth returned the following weekend, using $5 that Chris had won playing putt-putt had given her to pay for gas. Two weekends after that, they were married.

The couple, with three children and seven grandchildren, celebrated their 44th anniversary on Sept. 29.

Chris started working at the Pavilion at 16. He remembers coming to Myrtle Beach from Conway every Sunday with his parents. They would listen to the German Baden-Band Organ and Chris would play games at the arcade.

Chris worked for several years at the Pavilion after the couple got married. Beth also worked at the Pavilion, recalling the time she broke her arm while manning the haunted house ride.

Beth eventually became a nurse, working at Conway Hospital and then in home health before she retired. Chris retired from a job in maintenance.

But they still recall those early years of marriage, living in a beach house, riding in Chris’ bright blue Dodge Charger and spending time with friends who worked at the Pavilion. “That place used to be packed,” Beth Edwards said.

The Edwardses took their children to the amusement park when they were little. The couple returned in 2006 before it was torn down, Beth Edwards said.

“It would have been neat to take the grandchildren there,” Beth Edwards said.

They have been to the Pavilion Park at Broadway at the Beach, where some of the rides, including the carousel, once at the amusement park are now located.

“It brings back some of the memories,” Beth Edwards said. “But not like the Ferris wheel, when all you could see was ocean. Of course, the Ferris wheel was our favorite.”

Former site sits empty decades later

Many have longed or asked for the Pavilion to be brought back or some type of similar development of the property. But the 11-acre lot that once housed the former amusement park still sits empty decades later, apart from a ropes and zipline course.

The property is used throughout the year for various festivals, including the annual Carolina Country Music Festival.

There have been discussions over the years about possible development of the site, which is owned by Burroughs & Chapin, a privately-owned company. A message left Oct. 25 with Burroughs & Chapin’s marketing firm LHWH was not returned.

Burroughs & Chapin also owns Broadway at the Beach, where several of the Pavilion Amusement Park rides were relocated after the park closed. The company cited the Pavilion’s financial instability as the reason for closing.

The city leases the former Pavilion property, which is adjacent to land that the city has purchased over the last two years, according to city spokesperson Mark Kruea.

Kruea said by email that the property could play a role in the redevelopment of that portion of downtown.

“We are working on future visions for the area in general, but those plans are not finalized,” he said. “… Whether the Pavilion site is redeveloped by the owner or as part of a larger city-led process remains to be seen.