The Waccamaw, Great Pee Dee, Little Pee Dee, and Little Rivers were important transportation routes for Horry County, serving Native Americans and early settlers much like interstate highways and giving the county access to the wider world. In 1860, the first steamboat on the Waccamaw River near Conwayborough was the Confederate troop ship Francis Marion. Around 1880, Burroughs and Collins Co. purchased its first of many steamboats, the Juniper, and a steamboat terminal was built at Conwayborough Wharf. Around 1896, Burroughs and Collins Co. established the Waccamaw Line of Steamers in Conway, and around 1898 its flagship, the F.G. Burroughs, made her maiden voyage. The Government Shipyard stood in Conway at the junction of the Waccamaw River and Kingston Lake. The side-wheel steamboat F.G. Burroughs was 125 feet long, was licensed to carry 130 passengers, and could carry 150 tons of freight. The Mitchelle C., launched in 1905, was the last of the steamboats built in Conway, and the Comanche was the last steamboat to make regular runs from Georgetown to Conway before that schedule ended in the 1920s. Around 1919, the era of steamboats on the Waccamaw faded with the sale of the Waccamaw Line of Steamers.