06/18/2026
Cedartown Goodyear Then & Now. Center photo from 1955. Video credit to PCHS volunteer Jordan Reyes.
"In 1925 Charles Adamson sold his Cedartown Cotton & Export Company to Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Soon, Goodyear constructed a new building and replaced old machinery. The Cedartown plant was named Clearwater Mill, after the waters of the Big Spring. When Goodyear arrived in 1926, Cedartown's population approached the 4,000 mark, and payrolls were low. By the early 1950s, the population had climbed to nearly 10,000 and a payroll of $7 million. Goodyear and its support industries based in the area were mostly responsible. Goodyear built 226 small, wood-frame houses in Cedartown for its employees. And, although Goodyear was interested in making money, it had no intention of getting into the landlord and real estate business. For houses the rent cost 55 cents per room, for two rooms in a duplex in the mill village, and as little as 24 cents for one of the older three-room houses." Polk County, Georgia: The First One Hundred Years by Larry D. Carter
