This is a blast from the past, published in The News on Thursday, July 1, 1976.
Twenty-two years ago doesn’t seem like such a long time, but as I turn the torn yellow pages of this old battered copy of The County Record, names, places, memories come into focus, and the cobwebs of time melt away.
In 1954, on election night, the crowds would still gather behind the courthouse and they would write the returns on a giant blackboard, in the long ago before television with its computers and projections.
June 10, 1954, and the big story in Williamsburg County is the re-election of Junious W. Osborne as county supervisor.
In the house race, there will be a runoff June 22, between J.P. Askins, Henry Baggett, E. Robert Rowell, and Henry Stuckey. Willy Bradham defeated Guy McIntosh for magistrate of Kingstree. George Bell Timmerson, Jr. outpolled Lester Bates in Williamsburg County in the race of governor, 3,150 to 2,127 votes.
Ernest Hollings easily carried the county in the race for lieutenant governor with 3,702 votes to his opponent Claytor Arrants’ 1,545.
On the front page of The County Record is a picture of Cadet Frank W. Thomas, Jr., who is graduating from the Citadel. Mr. and Mrs. W.L. Miles announce the birth of a daughter, Judith Blane, June 3. The baby weighed eight pounds.
Mr. and Mrs. H.E. Mercer announce the birth of a son David at the Kelly Memorial Hospital. Also on the front pages was the world-shaking announcement that Greeleyville, effective immediately, would have the services of a third Greyhound bus. Probably they sent the third bus over there to find the other two.
Close your eyes and try to remember downtown Kingstree in 1954: Silverman’s was celebrating it 50th anniversary. S.S. Arronson’s was where Eagles is now. Stanley’s Red and White, Steve Montgomery’s grocery, the Anderson Theater, Pilotane Gas Co., Rogers Drugstore, the Carolina Hotel, Dukes Grocery, the A&P store on Mill Street, Allsbrooks Hardware, Hoss Williamson’s Drive In.
They are all a part of yesterday’s world. Do you realize in 1954 nobody had ever heard of Elvis Presley?
But if yesterday’s politics and yesterday’s birth announcement lift the cobwebs from your memory, it’s yesterday’s economics that jolt us into a reality of the changes 22 years can bring.
In the June 10, 1954, County Record, Rogers Motor and Implement Co. advertises a brand new two door, six passenger Buick for $2,348.88.  Harry Cahn was advertising the Rocket 88 Oldsmobile and Frank Parsons’ Shell station announced its grand opening, offering two pounds of sugar with every five gallons of gas purchased, and everyone was invited to register for the grand prize, a $100 bill. Frank Parson was a kind and gentle man whose first love was the New York Yankee baseball team.  Remember?
The Super X station on East Main Street was selling gasoline for 28 cents a gallon, and how many of you remember credit at the grocery store? You could still get it in Kingstree in 1954.
And you could get something else: A whole lot of groceries for a $20 bill. At Tomlinson’s supermarket you could buy 25 pounds of flour for $1.59. Corn, six ears for 19 cents. Sirloin steak, 59 cents a pound, and Sweetheart soap, four bars for 24 cents.
The A&P was featuring ground beef for 39 cents a pound, breakfast bacon for 65 cents a pound. And bread was 14 cents a loaf. In 1954, the only X-rated show in town was if somebody forgot to pull the window shades down.
At the Anderson Theater, William Holden was starring in “Executive Suite.” “Take the High Ground,” with Richard Whitmark and Karl Maulden, was playing at the Kingstree Drive In.
And how many of you remember the other drive in theater in Kingstree in 1954, Earl’s Drive In on the Hemingway Highway? In 1954, Pearless Lambert was sheriff and Tom Kellahan was corner.
Like opening the cover of an old high school yearbook, or finding a scrapbook full of old photographs, eight pages of a 22-year-old newspaper. Do you suppose that 22 years from now, some teenager will find a copy of the Kingstree News and ask the question, “Mother, who was Elvis Presley?”