Soon after Georgia-Pacific Corp. announced that it will eliminate 555 jobs at Crossett and another 100 jobs at Hope, I received an email from a prominent south Arkansas business leader.
"I was raised on a farm on the first ridge as you come out of the Delta," he wrote. "It kills me to see towns throughout south Arkansas go through their death throes. To add insult to injury, the region's soil and abundant water make our productive capacity globally competitive. But like a British colony, we harvest our products and send them out with a minimum of value added. I understand and accept that our forefathers wanted no industries that might compete for the labor needed to pick and chop cotton. They won. But it ain't over unless we quit trying to make a difference. The recent bad news we've had of further job losses knocked our wind out. But I hear Rocky's trainer screaming, 'Get up!' "
I was inspired by this Arkansan's willingness to fight back and have made plans to spend a day with him later this summer so we can discuss the future of the south half of the state.
Soon after the Georgia-Pacific news, Arkansas Economic Development Commission officials gathered at Crossett to announce that the city had completed AEDC's Competitive Communities Initiative. It's the first city in south Arkansas to receive the designation and the smallest city to be named a Competitive Community. Previous cities named are Little Rock, Jonesboro, Russellville, Newport and Paragould.
One of the people in Crossett for the ceremony told me: "I believe Crossett will be OK. There are companies that are intrigued with a skilled workforce of 500 people who are ready to go to work. With a low unemployment rate, our biggest challenge in most parts of the state is identifying a ready workforce. The availability of jobs gives Crossett an advantage. I also was impressed by the schools and medical facilities I saw there. They even have a new Tru by Hilton hotel."
Those of us who write about population losses in rural Arkansas counties usually focus on the Delta. Yet across the pine belt of south Arkansas, there are counties bleeding population. Ashley County, where Crossett is located, lost 5.7 percent of its population between 2012 and 2017. During that same period, Lafayette County lost 7.9 percent, Jefferson County lost 7.4 percent, Dallas County lost 7 percent, Nevada County lost 6.5 percent and Ouachita County lost 6 percent.
A rare bit of good economic news for the region came Monday when Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced from the Paris Air Show in France that Lockheed Martin will expand at East Camden, investing $142 million and hiring an additional 326 workers. Two buildings will be constructed to manufacture a new line of weapons.
"This is going to be a significant step forward for us and not only the U.S. government in its defense but also our international partners," said Frank St. John, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control.
Lockheed Martin already employs about 650 people in the Camden area. Construction of the buildings likely will begin later this year with the new jobs all added by 2024.
State officials must hope that the defense-related sector that's centered in East Camden's Highland Industrial Park continues to expand. That alone, however, won't stop the out-migration.
The pine tree is king in south Arkansas, and increased uses for the area's timber harvest must be found. The most critical item on the AEDC to-do list is ensuring that the Sun Bio project near Arkadelphia moves forward. Back in April 2016, Hutchinson announced with great fanfare that the Chinese-owned company would spend $1.3 billion and employ 250 workers at a pulp mill in the Clark County Industrial Park at Gum Springs. More than three years later, ground has yet to be broken. What happened?
Sun Bio officials decided to change the scope of their project to manufacture the type of cardboard used by Amazon, Walmart and other online retailers to ship products. That, as anyone who orders things online knows, is a growing market. The cost of the project has now gone up to $1.8 billion (which would be the largest private investment in state history) with a total of 350 jobs.
The bigger impact, though, will be the estimated 1,000 jobs that will be created across south Arkansas to supply the mill with pine. Since the Great Recession more than a decade ago, south Arkansas has been growing trees far faster than they're being used. A lack of raw materials isn't a concern.
The delay came because the change in scope forced the company to seek new environmental permits. An Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality public hearing on May 30 in Arkadelphia went well. I'm told that the company could have the permits it needs to move foward with construction by the end of the year.
With all due respect to the defense and the oil and gas industries, the pine tree still reigns in south Arkansas. It has been that way since the Big Cut, the period from the late 1880s until about 1930 when Northern investors came into the region to harvest the virgin timber. Once that virgin timber was gone, the companies that stayed behind had to figure out different methods of growing and harvesting trees. And that takes us back to where we started: Crossett.
In a 1980 U.S. Forest Service paper titled "The Crossett Story," forester R.R. Reynolds wrote about the era that lasted from the end of the Big Cut until the mid-1950s. When Reynolds joined the Southern Forest Experiment Station at Crossett fresh out of the University of Michigan School of Forestry in July 1930, he learned that many large Southern mills already had closed.
"The production of lumber had been largely taken over by small 'peckerwood' mills that could be easily moved from place to place, and logging could be done by two or three pairs of mules or horses," he wrote. "It was agreed almost universally that the South would soon be out of the large-volume, large-sawmill business, and few had any idea as to what would, or should, happen to the cutovers."
Most roads in south Arkansas were unpaved when Reynolds arrived. Rural residents lacked electricity and running water. The company town of Crossett was a bit of an oasis. Reynolds lived at the Rose Inn before he and his wife Geneva found a home.
"The Rose Inn was a three-story wooden structure with open walkup stairways," he wrote. "It was company owned and provided the only public overnight housing in town. It had a large lobby with a big fireplace and a long row of rocking chairs. Another long row of such chairs adorned the covered front porch. Rooms on the third floor were reserved for unmarried schoolteachers."
Rooms on the second floor took care of visiting Crossett Lumber Co. officials, some of the single men who worked for the company, and traveling salesmen. Other visitors included foresters from Yale University who helped with research that allowed the Crossett Lumber Co. to adapt and transform Crossett into the forestry capital of the South.
Even the visitors from Connecticut were impressed by the Rose Inn dining room, which Reynolds described as having "sparkling white tablecloths and waiters in white jackets. . . . For many years, men had to wear ties and coats before they were admitted to the room."
With the virgin timber gone by the 1930s, south Arkansas adapted with renewable forestry. Now, the region must adapt again.
------------v------------
Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 06/23/2019