Early in his career as a reporter, photographer, and editor for the Keowee Courier, Ashton Hester became fascinated by the volumes containing issues from past years of the paper, which was founded in 1849. He began compiling a weekly column containing news highlights from the corresponding dates 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, etc., years ago. He first titled the column From the Past but eventually changed it to Looking Back, which is also the title of this book and three previous books highlighting the years 1888, 1907, 1911, and 1914; the years 1915, 1918, 1924, and 1935; and the World War II years, 1941–1945.