Poised for Growth:

Prelude To A Chamber

Written by W. Winston Skinner

The Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce was officially organized in 1947, but events both near and far contributed to its inception.

The global chamber movement was well established by the 1940s; the first was organized in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1750. The oldest in the United States was founded just one state away in Charleston, S.C., in 1773.

Statistics from the Association for Chamber of Commerce Executives state that there were approximately 4,000 chambers in the United States with at least one staff member in 2013 and some 13,000 worldwide.

The Chamber Nation website describes these necessary entities: “The Chamber of Commerce is an interconnected group of businesses and professionals working together to increase local commerce and to serve their communities more effectively than can be done individually.”

Newnan and Coweta County were ready to connect and collaborate by the mid-1940s.

Historian W. Jeff Bishop, author of “Coweta County: A Brief History,” notes that Newnan was much like other similar Georgia towns. However, “It also thrived a lot more than many others.”

Coweta County had several textile mills in Newnan and smaller towns throughout the county. Newnan was also home to the R.D. Cole Manufacturing Company. The Cole firm was founded in 1854 and, at the time of the Chamber’s inception, manufactured water tanks and – during wartime – various goods for the military.

The presence of R.D. Cole lent economic diversity and strength to the community, rooting the county as an industrial center and a home for small businesses.

Murray Printing Company was, for decades, the county’s oldest business. Founded in 1845, it was operated by the founding family for an entire century.

Johnson Hardware, a fixture in Newnan for over 100 years, was founded in 1876.

Senoia is still home to Hollberg’s, founded in 1894.

Newnan native Ellis Arnall, Georgia’s governor from 1943-1947, wrote about his hometown in his 1946 book, “The Shore Dimly Seen.”

“Newnan … was exceptional among Southern cities of its size only because there was a larger, more firmly established middle class than in most communities that were farm and textile centers.”

Bishop added, “Before World War II, there was much poverty throughout the south, and Newnan escaped much of that.”

“Newnan had department stores and grocery stores. It had economic development,” he boasted. “Newnan was just a different kind of place, and it was much more economically developed than many other places.”

The return of Coweta’s young men – who had seen life in other parts of the United States and worldwide in the military – was also part of the ferment in the 1940s.

“After World War II, there’s this huge economic growth that’s going on throughout the United States,” Bishop said.

Expanding the railroad and highway systems could impact any community, particularly those who were prepared. Coweta County “was poised to benefit from what was happening,” Bishop said.