If you own timberland, your trees do not stop growing because a mill closes or the market changes right?
No.They keep growing.
The thinning still needs to happen. The property still needs managing. Taxes still come due. Loggers still need somewhere to take the wood.
But when major buyers disappear, something important changes.
There are fewer places to sell it.
That is part of what has happened across South Carolina over the last few years, and for a county as heavily forested as Colleton, it deserves attention.
According to the South Carolina Forestry Commission, mill closings and production cutbacks in South Carolina and neighboring states from 2023 through 2025 removed about 10.7 million tons of annual market capacity for South Carolina wood. The agency says that represents a decline of more than 30 percent since 2022 and can affect jobs, the value of standing timber and the ability to keep forestland economically managed.
10.7 million tons.
That is the annual wood-market capacity the Forestry Commission says South Carolina lost through mill closings and curtailments from 2023 through 2025.
That is a very big hole in a market.
And Colleton County has a lot riding on that market.
COLLETON IS TIMBER COUNTRY
The Forestry Commission's county estimates based on timber delivered to mills in 2021 put Colleton at approximately 493,480 acres of forestland, or about 74 percent of the county.
Timber harvested in Colleton and delivered to mills that year was estimated at $75.6 million, second-highest among South Carolina counties in that particular report. The estimated value paid for the standing timber itself was more than $42 million.
Those are historical estimates, not a statement that Colleton timber is worth the same amount in 2026. The Forestry Commission also cautions that Timber Products Output figures are designed primarily for interpretation at larger geographic levels.
But the numbers make the larger point hard to miss.
Trees have been part of Colleton County's economy for a long time.
THE PRICE OF SOME OF THAT WOOD HAS FALLEN HARD
One of the areas taking the biggest hit has been pulpwood.
Pulpwood is generally smaller or lower-value wood that can go into paper, fiberboard, pellets and other products rather than being cut into traditional lumber.
The Forestry Commission reported an average statewide pine pulpwood stumpage price of $14.17 per ton in the first quarter of 2022.
By the second quarter of 2026, the statewide average was $5.27 per ton.
That is a decline of roughly 63 percent.
Those statewide averages should not be treated as a quote for an individual Colleton County property. Actual prices can vary considerably depending on timber quality, volume, accessibility and local supply and demand.
Still, the trend helps explain why finding new markets matters.
COLLETON HAD ALREADY RECOGNIZED WOOD MANUFACTURING AS AN OPPORTUNITY
Here is where this story gets interesting.
Long before the current timber-market problems reached this scale, Colleton County planning documents were already talking about forest products as an economic-development opportunity.
A 2019 draft of the county's comprehensive plan said industrial recruitment had been focused on areas including light manufacturing, aerospace, forest-product processing and food processing.
Another Colleton comprehensive planning document went further. In a section identifying industries that could fit one of the county's development zones, it listed wood-product manufacturing and veneer, plywood and engineered wood-product manufacturing, including OSB and MDF.
MDF stands for medium-density fiberboard.
Keep that in mind.
Because a major MDF manufacturer is now coming to another rural South Carolina county.
CLARENDON IS GETTING A $250 MILLION FIBERBOARD OPERATION
In May 2025, Homanit announced plans to establish its first U.S. manufacturing operation in Clarendon County.
The company announced a $250 million investment and 300 jobs, with production expected to begin in 2028.
Homanit manufactures medium- and high-density wood fiberboard for furniture, doors, automotive products and other uses. The company said Clarendon offered a skilled workforce, strategic location and strong infrastructure.
South Carolina State Forester Scott Phillips pointed to another reason the announcement mattered. He described the project as particularly welcome news for the state's pine pulpwood markets.
That connection is important.
A plant like this does more than occupy an industrial site. It needs wood.
That can potentially create another buyer for timber grown across a much wider area.
Whether Colleton County could have met Homanit's particular requirements is a completely different question, and one we are not answering here.
We do not yet know whether Colleton was considered.
We do not know whether a Colleton site was submitted.
And we do not know whether the company had requirements that made Clarendon the obvious choice.
Those are questions for another part of this reporting.
What we do know is that a new market for wood fiber is being built in South Carolina.
ALLENDALE IS GETTING A NEW SAWMILL
Then came Allendale County.
In June 2025, Hampton Lumber announced a $225 million sawmill in Fairfax that is expected to create at least 125 jobs.
The 375,000-square-foot operation will manufacture Southern Yellow Pine framing lumber and is expected to begin operating in 2027.
Again, we are not suggesting Hampton Lumber should have chosen Colleton County.
There is no evidence in the material reviewed for this article showing that Hampton was choosing between Colleton and Allendale.
What the project demonstrates is simpler.
A company was willing to put $225 million into a new operation built around Southern timber in this region of South Carolina.
ORANGEBURG IS TRYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT
A replacement wood market does not necessarily have to look like a traditional sawmill or paper mill.
In October 2025, Carolina Renewable Products announced plans for a $280 million operation in Orangeburg County expected to create 155 jobs.
The company says it will turn sustainable woody biomass into renewable diesel, biochar and wood vinegar.
The state approved job-development credits for the project and a $750,000 Closing Fund grant to help with site preparation and construction. Operations were expected to begin in late 2026.
At the announcement, State Forester Phillips said the need to diversify markets for sustainable forest products in South Carolina had never been greater.
That may be the biggest point in this entire conversation.
Diversify the markets.
When traditional mills disappear, the answer does not necessarily have to be finding another company that makes exactly what the old mill made.
Wood can become lumber.
It can become fiberboard.
It can become packaging.
It can become engineered building products.
It can become biochar and other manufactured products.
South Carolina has recently attracted projects involving sawmills, fiberboard, pallets, wood packaging, mass timber, cellulose products and other forest-related manufacturing.
SOUTH CAROLINA IS ACTIVELY TRYING TO REBUILD
The state has not treated these mill closures as business as usual.
A South Carolina Forest Recovery Task Force was created after the mill closures to help rebuild the state's forest bioeconomy. Its work included recommendations for increased industry recruitment, global marketing and emerging technologies.
The Forestry Commission says eight new forest-products mills were announced in South Carolina during 2025, along with five mill upgrades and improvements. Those announcements represented about $1.26 billion in investment and 1,112 announced jobs.
That does not erase the 10.7 million tons of market capacity the state has lost.
But it tells us something important.
There is still investment happening in wood.
SO WHERE DOES COLLETON FIT INTO THAT?
That is the part we are not going to guess about.
Colleton County has identified forest products as an economic-development opportunity before.
It has a major forest resource.
South Carolina now has a documented need for new timber markets.
And companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new forest-product operations in other parts of the state.
What we do not yet know is what has happened behind the scenes here.
Has Colleton County recently studied how much pulpwood, sawtimber and other wood is available within an economical hauling distance?
Has Colleton pursued new primary wood users since the mill closures began?
Have local industrial sites been submitted for forest-products projects?
Has Colleton competed for projects residents never heard about because economic-development negotiations were confidential?
Have companies considered Colleton and decided against it?
If they did, what was missing?
Water?
Sewer?
Power?
Natural gas?
Rail?
Workforce?
Site preparation?
Something else?
And what happened to the forest-product opportunities identified in county planning documents years ago?
Those are questions. They are not conclusions.
BEFORE THE DATA CENTER, WHAT ELSE SHOULD WE BE ASKING?
Colleton County is having a larger conversation about major development and what its economic future should look like.
Data centers are now part of that conversation.
This article is not arguing that a forest-products operation automatically makes more sense than a data center. They are different industries with different land, utility, employment and tax implications.
But before the county's future is discussed only in terms of what new industries could be brought onto large pieces of land, there is another question worth putting on the table.
What could we build around what is already growing on that land?
A wood-consuming industry can have an economic relationship with property owners far beyond the parcel where the factory itself sits.
A sawmill, fiberboard plant or another large wood user needs a continuing supply of timber.
That means landowners across a wider area can potentially become suppliers.
Whether that model works here depends on the numbers.
But it deserves to be studied.
THERE IS A WAY TO FIND OUT WHAT OUR FORESTS COULD SUPPORT
The South Carolina Forestry Commission says its economic-development staff provides customized market analysis, forest-resource analysis and industry-expansion assistance.
It also offers tools for woodbasket analysis.
In plain English, that type of analysis can help answer a basic question:
How much usable wood is actually available around a location, and what industries could that supply support?
That matters because there is no point chasing an MDF mill, sawmill, biochar facility or another forest-products operation if the numbers do not work.
The timber supply has to be there.
Competing mills have to be considered.
Trucking distance matters.
Utilities matter.
The workforce matters.
The economics have to work.
But those things can be studied.
THIS IS WHERE OUR REPORTING STARTS
Walterboro Shines is going to continue looking at this.
We want to understand how other rural counties positioned themselves for these projects.
We want to know what Colleton has already tried.
And we want to know what could realistically still be done.
This is not about claiming that every acre of timberland should remain timberland forever.
It is not an argument that one particular kind of industrial development is automatically better than another.
It is a much simpler question.
Colleton County has spent generations growing an economic resource that covers much of this county.
South Carolina has just lost a huge portion of the market that buys that resource.
At the same time, new companies are coming into South Carolina looking for wood.
So before the data center, before we assume the future of Colleton County has to come from something entirely new, it seems worth asking what more could be built around something we already have.
The trees are here.
Now we need to find out what opportunities are here with them.
Sources & Documents
Walterboro Shines used primary state and county sources for this report.
South Carolina Forestry Commission — Economic Development
https://www.scfc.gov/development/economic-development/
South Carolina Forestry Commission — Value of South Carolina Timber, county estimates based on 2021 deliveries
https://www.scfc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ValueOfSCTimber2022b.pdf
South Carolina Forestry Commission — 2022 First-Quarter Timber Prices
https://www.scfc.gov/resources/public-information/landowner-resources/timber-prices/timber-prices-2022-1st-quarter/
South Carolina Forestry Commission — Current Timber Price Report
https://www.scfc.gov/resources/public-information/landowner-resources/timber-prices/acknowledgement-of-pricing-fluctuation/current-timber-price-report/
Colleton County — 2019 Comprehensive Plan Draft, Economic Development section
https://www.colletoncounty.org/sites/default/files/uploads/agendas-minutes/additionals/colleton-county-plan-draft_09092019.pdf
Colleton County — Comprehensive Plan, Appendix B Economic Development
https://www.colletoncounty.org/sites/default/files/uploads/planning_dev/colletoncounty2020comprehensiveplan.pdf
South Carolina Department of Commerce — Homanit in Clarendon County
https://www.sccommerce.com/fr/node/8190
South Carolina Department of Commerce — Hampton Lumber in Allendale County
https://www.sccommerce.com/news/hampton-lumber-selects-allendale-county-first-east-coast-operation
South Carolina Department of Commerce — Carolina Renewable Products in Orangeburg County
https://www.sccommerce.com/es/node/8230
South Carolina Forestry Commission — Assessment of South Carolina Forestry Sectors and Forest Recovery Task Force
https://www.scfc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/IndustryInsights-AssessmentOfSCForestrySectors.pdf
Reporting note: This series grew out of a question raised by reader Kim on our Facebook page. Her perspective helped inspire a broader look at the data center story and at what other economic possibilities Colleton County may have. That question led Walterboro Shines to look more closely at South Carolina’s changing timber markets, the industries being recruited in other rural counties, and what those trends could mean here.
It is also a good reminder of why we should listen to different perspectives. Sometimes one reader asks a question that opens up an entirely different part of the story.
Future reporting will examine how other counties prepared for forest-products investment and ask Colleton County and its economic-development partners what opportunities have been pursued locally.
Thank you, Kim. You shine. You matter.