Letter: The day Beaufort died

Beaufort changed on April 18, most likely forever.

Maybe you didn’t notice unless you tried to commute between Frogmore and Lady’s Island (or vice versa) past the new Wal-Mart. A short, 3.6-mile trip between the two points turned into a 50-minute delay as two lanes dropped to one for “paving.”

Unbelievable, given that paving a small cutout square of pavement could have been accomplished at night.

But, it is not fair to judge the future of a city (no longer a town) on one inconvenience.

Add Boundary Street to the list, Robert Smalls Parkway and numerous new developments surrounding Lowe’s, the clear-cutting on Sam’s Point Road, etc., and you have the makings of a “big” city, one in which development is defined, and will be defined, by orange cones and sawhorses.

Beaufort will obviously have a fresh look and feel in another year or so, with beautiful marshside vistas and esplanades. I am all for the “look,” but it does come at a price. Not the monetary one, but the one that comes at the expense of a small hometown. A “town” that motivated many to relocate or to simply return home.

If you are in doubt, I could easily point to the once “sleepy” town of Austin, Texas, that morphed into the fourth largest city in Texas. The turning point was a magazine article years ago placing it in the “Top 10 Cities to Live.”

While I am not necessarily against change, I am just letting you know it arrived on this day in Beaufort.

This story was originally published April 20, 2017 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Letter: The day Beaufort died."