Your Official Lowcountry's Best Resource

Vision: The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette are the leading news and information sources for the Lowcountry of South Carolina. We take seriously our responsibility to provide essential, trustworthy information, with an eye toward preserving what is best about the region and heightening awareness of what can be better. We work energetically to extend our brand thorough innovation, creativity and by capitalizing on opportunities in our market.

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Founded: (Island Packet) In 1970, real estate developer Tom Wamsley and former newspaperman and retired Foreign Service officer Ralph Hilton enlisted help and money from a third Hilton Head Island resident to start a newspaper. Jonathan Daniels, editor emeritus of the Raleigh News & Observer, which his family owned, agreed to write a weekly column; his wife, Lucy, provided $5,000 to get the newspaper started. The first edition — a 20-page tabloid — rolled off the press July 9, 1970. The paper came out on Thursday afternoons to the island with only 3,000 residents. As the island grew into a renowned resort, the Packet grew with it — from a weekly tabloid into a daily broadsheet newspaper. McClatchy Newspapers purchased the Packet in 1990, and by 1995 it had become a seven-day-a-week newspaper.

(Beaufort Gazette) William Elliott, a Beaufort attorney, founded The Beaufort Gazette in 1897. The first edition was a four-page, eight-column broadsheet. In 1907, the Gazette consolidated with the Port Royal-based Palmetto Post. The Gazette became a five-day-a-week, afternoon newspaper April 30, 1973. McClatchy Newspapers purchased the Gazette in 1990, which converted it to morning publication. By 1995, the Gazette had become a seven-day-a-week newspaper.