Rainbow Court

National Register Listing

Street Address:

405 Flagg St., Myrtle Beach, SC (Horry County)

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NRHP Nomination

Record Number:

S10817726023

Description and Narrative:

The Rainbow Court is significant for its association with Myrtle Beach’s period of growth and prosperity as a coastal community resort from 1926 to 1954 and as an excellent representative example of the motels/hotels commonly built in Myrtle Beach in the mid-twentieth century. The Rainbow Court is one of the few remaining examples of the small-scale, low-rise motels that pre-dates Hurricane Hazel (1954). The complex of buildings, ranging in dates of construction from 1935 to 1959, consists of two motel-type buildings, five beach cottages/boarding houses, and a small house. The buildings are situated around an open court with a swimming pool. There are six contributing buildings. The non-contributing properties include the house and building that face onto 5th Avenue, the office building facing Flagg Street, and the pool. Rainbow Court has been owned by the same family since it was first opened in 1940 by Harvey C. Jones and Lila Mae Bognall who moved two boarding houses from the beach to start their enterprise. Over the next twenty years they built or moved the additional buildings to the complex, with the exception of the small house facing 5th Avenue North, which was not added until 1970. Rainbow Court was demolished in 2017. Listed in the National Register November 7, 1996. Removed from the National Register February 27, 2020.

Period of Significance:

circa 1940 – 1954

Level of Significance:

Local

Area of Significance:

Entertainment/Recreation;Architecture

National Register Determination:

removed from National Register

Date of Certification:

November 7 1996

Date of Removal from the Register:

February 27 2020

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