The County Record Archive

The weekly Kingstree County Record (1885-1975) delivered the news on local, national, and international events to the people of Kingstree, located in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, for nearly a century. Significant events covered by the County Record included: the cultivation of tobacco as a cash crop in the late 19^th century; the establishment of the Kingstree Building and Loan Association in 1905; and the devastation of the county's cotton crop by boll weevils, starting in 1920.

Richard Columbus Logan launched the County Record on February 17, 1885, declaring, "It is our desire and aim to make the County Record a reflex of current events in every portion of the county." Aside from its inaugural issue, no issues published before 1897 are known to have survived. According to the Geo. P. Rowell and Co.'s American Newspaper Directory, the County Record claimed a circulation of 750 in 1889. Sometime around 1895, Logan sold the newspaper to Edwin Girardeau Chandler. From there, it rapidly changed hands several times, before being finally sold to Charles Wesley Wolfe in 1898. Under his management, the County Record expanded in size from eight to thirteen pages, survived competition from a rival newspaper, the Kingstree Weekly Mail, and doubled its circulation. Following Wolfe’s death in 1915, Waiteman Francis Tolley acquired the County Record and, with the help of his associates Lindsay Harper Cromer, Jr., Edwin Christopher Epps, and Richard K. Wallace, kept it going well into the 1920s.

Of the many individuals associated with the County Record, Richard Logan and Charles Wolfe played especially significant roles in the development of Williamsburg County. Logan held the distinction of having founded Kingstree's first newspaper, the Kingstree Star, and of having served as commissioner in equity for Williamsburg County. Wolfe founded the Georgetown Outlook, represented Williamsburg County in the South Carolina General Assembly (1899-1900), and served as principal of Blenheim High School, located in neighboring Marlboro County.

In 1975, the County Record was absorbed by the weekly Kingstree News, which still continues to the present day. The last issue of the County Record appeared on June 25, 1975.