Beaufort is a city of traditional and gracious beauty, lordly and striking mansions of Pre-Revolutionary and Pre-Civil War eras, placid and productive marshes teeming with shrimp, crabs and oysters. It is a city of antiquity and pride where family roots and accomplishments count a great deal more than the material aspects of life. The entire downtown area is on the National Historic Register and several homes have been designated as National Historic Landmarks for federal preservation by the Department of the Interior

Beaufort was one of the first areas in America to be visited by European explorers. Since the Spanish conquistadors first landed in 1520, Beaufort has known French Huguenots, English privateers and pirates, Scottish fur traders, Indian wars and bloody internecine fighting during the Revolutionary war. The first fort on the American continent was built here in 1525. It was a center of culture and affluence prior to the Civil War, when great fortunes were made first in the cultivation of rice and indigo and later in long staple sea island cotton.

It was also a hotbed of secessionist sentiment, and the original Ordinance of Secession (by which South Carolina led the withdrawal of the Southern states from the Union) was drawn up in Beaufort in 1861. As a result, Beaufort saw early reprisals from the U.S. Government. Beaufort was occupied by Federal forces for the rest of the war and homes were confiscated and sold for back taxes or used by the Union. Because of this, Beaufort had the good fortune of surviving with an uncommon amount of its historic beauty intact, a fact that makes it a particularly beautiful part of the South even today.

Beaufort has much more than just a proud past, it has a great present. It was named one of the 10 most desirable places to live by Outside magazine in 1992 and placed 23rd on a list of the 100 best small towns in a report released this past December in USA Weekend.

Outside described Beaufort as a place “where you don’t have to give up a good living to live a good life.” An associate editor for the magazine clarified this by stating that the 10 “real towns” chosen shared good public schools and employment opportunities, access to the arts and proximity to wild places.

The USA Weekend article listed its criteria as being low crime and high rankings in the categories of growth, per-capita income, per-capita bank deposits, proportion of young adults, number of physicians, public shool expenditures per pupil and proportion of college-educated residents.