Ya'll we made it—Charleston magazine’s official big 5-0! Half a century ago this month, the city’s first magazine was published. Editor Robert Winter introduced the premier edition, with a stately watercolor painting of the French Huguenot Church on its cover, humorously musing: “There’s nothing new in Charleston. This place is as old as the hills.... Here’s a new idea, a magazine for you and about your city and the Lowcountry....”
That slim, 40-page issue featured the Charleston Ballet School and Company, a downtown carriage house fashioned from the ruins of the Bennett Rice Mill, a roundup of pilau recipes, and upcoming local events. Today, Charleston—both the city and the magazine—has changed immensely. Sure, we still cover local artists, homes, and foodways, but the variety and scope have grown exponentially (not to mention our page count!).
Since January, we’ve been celebrating this milestone with a variety of features reflecting on the city’s evolution over the past five decades. In this issue: economic development. In “Charleston Reimagined” (page 110), longtime newspaper journalist Jeff Wilkinson surveys the area’s transformation from a sleepy port town to the boomtown it is today, highlighting some of the key players in its reinvention. To better understand that sleepy port town, “The Way We Were” (page 122) takes us back to the summer of 1975 through personal essays about
life downtown, east of the Cooper, and on the islands.
I’d also encourage you to check out this month’s Flashback (page 216), a tribute to our first issue with a link to a digital flip-book you can peruse online. There’s even a spread of the Charleston Photographic Society’s best shots, perhaps a seedling to our annual “Images of Charleston” photo contest (page 88). It’s hard to fathom the volumes of content created over the past 50 years. My thanks to all of the writers, photographers, artists, designers, and editors who have chronicled our city so beautifully; to the myriad business owners who have advertised; and to the many loyal readers who love Charleston as much as we do. Here’s to you all—we wouldn’t be here without you!
Darcy Shankland
dshankland@charlestonmag.com