Lumber company lays off workers; company looks to sell plant

By By William F. West / community editor
Dec. 17, 2002
QUITMAN A Quitman plant is operating with a skeleton crew after the company laid off the bulk of its workforce.
Hankins Lumber Co. Inc. plans to close its sawmill at 300 N. Archusa Ave., plant manager W.L. Brown said Monday.
Brown said 100 to 110 employees have been sent home, with only about 10 to 12 now reporting to work. He said layoffs began late last month and continued as late as Friday.
Brown didn't say when the plant will close. He said the plant is for sale and that another company has made an offer; he declined to name the company he said made an offer several weeks ago.
Hankins Lumber Co. is the latest blow to Clarke County, which has been reeling since Burlington Industries Inc. closed its Stonewall textile plant earlier this year and left more than 800 people jobless.
Clarke County has had the state's highest unemployment rate for much of the year.
Leigh Moore, an administrative assistant at H.C. Watkins Hospital, said she had heard talk of layoffs at Hankins Lumber but wasn't certain whether it was true.
Dick Younger, acting manager of the state WIN Job Center in Quitman, said a few Hankins workers are seeking employment elsewhere.
Brown cited a decline in the Southern Yellow Pine timber market as the reason for closing the plant.
He said the closure will mark the end of a business that dates back to the 19th century and that once employed as many as 135 people.
He said the plant had various owners over the years until the Hankins family of Grenada bought it in the mid-1980s.
Brown, 68, the plant's manager for about 20 years, said he is concerned about those who have been laid off particularly those who had worked so long.