The Times and Democrat is owned by Lee Enterprises, a company based in Davenport, Iowa.

It also has ties to four other newspapers born in the aftermath of the American Civil War: The Southron, The Tax-Payer, The Edisto Clarion and The Orangeburg News and Times.

In 1878, he purchased The Edisto Clarion, successor to The Tax-Payer, and changed its name again, to The Orangeburg Democrat.

Sims' editor at the Democrat was Stiles R. Mellichamp, who after a short period left to start his own newspaper, The Orangeburg Times.

A close Orangeburg newspaper colleague of Sims in those early days was Hugo S. Sheridan.

James Izlar Sims, the oldest, dropped out of school at age 14 to work at The Times and Democrat.

J. Izlar Sims, then 16 years old, was sent to New York City to learn how to operate the new machine that was destined to revolutionize the newspaper industry.

J. Izlar Sims also founded a radio station and brought the first talking picture (movie theater) to Orangeburg, in the late 1920s.

Sims died in 1962 at age 47, surviving family members named Dean Livingston, 29, as publisher, a position he held until his retirement in 1999.

A century ago, The Times and Democrat was the first newspaper in town to buy a cylinder press.

In 1989 The Times and Democrat became South Carolina's first daily newspaper to design its pages entirely with computers.

Starting June 6, 2023, the print edition of the newspaper was reduced to three days a week: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.