Report: Paper mill's closure to create $182M annual hole in Southwest Georgia's economy

Caption

The Georgia-Pacific paper mill at Early County closed at the end of July 2025.

Credit: Georgia Pacific via David Bridges / Informed Ag

The Georgia-Pacific mill in Southwest Georgia’s Early County produced its last roll of paper several weeks ago.

And most of its 535 jobs were ended by August.

With the mill officially closed, a report presented to county commissioners in September paints a bleak picture for a region that relied on it as a major employer for six decades.

The report estimated the annual economic loss at $182 million.

That includes not just payroll and direct and indirect spending, but also tax revenue for local schools and governments and the effect on foresters who supplied the mill.

“This is going to have a devastating impact on the timber industry in all of Southwest Georgia,” said David Bridges, a consultant who prepared the report. “It’s going to have an impact on numerous counties.”

Bridges, a former president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and a former director of the Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation, counts 87 timber companies within 100 miles of the facility in Georgia alone.

The mill’s supply chain includes 33 counties in a three-state region, including some of the most timber-rich counties in Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

“There are going to have to be some pretty significant adjustments made by the county, the city [of Blakely] and the school system,” Bridges said. “I hate to put it this way, but they’re going to become another very poor rural Georgia county.”

The paper mill at Cedar Springs was opened in 1962 under local ownership and eventually came under the Georgia-Pacific corporate umbrella.

It gave Early County some tangible advantages compared to neighboring counties, including higher incomes, higher tax revenues and even lower millage rates, Bridges said.

On its 50th anniversary, in 2013, a local newspaper celebrated its impact on local schools, the public library, the local chamber of commerce, Kolomoki Mounds State Park and other community organizations.

Its closure, announced on May 14, was a shock to many in the region.

But Bridges, a longtime booster for rural Georgia, urges officials in Early County to look forward to redevelopment, even if it comes in small steps.

And he urges officials in the state capital of Atlanta to simply to pay attention to what’s happening in a region of the state that is beset with generational decline.

Bridges said that he sent a letter warning of the impacts of the mill’s closure to about 50 leaders, including the governor, key state lawmakers and influential people in forestry and labor.

“I wrote that letter on the 18th of May,” he said. “You know how many responses I’ve had? Zero.”

The mill’s closure was not widely covered in media outside of South Georgia.

The shuttering was a result of “various factors” that made Georgia-Pacific conclude that the mill could not “competitively serve our customers in the long term,” according to the company’s statement.