The Camden Area Industrial Development Corporation was incorporated as the Camden Industrial Development Corporation on July 29, 1955 under the auspices of the Camden Chamber of Commerce. The original mission being “to promote the agricultural and industrial development of the City of Camden and Ouachita County“. It operates as a separate 501C-4 organization.  The name was changed on February 16, 1994 to Camden Area Industrial Development Corporation.

Stock in the corporation was sold in order to raise funds to purchase land for development. This tract of land now houses the Molex building and the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission’s Camden regional office. The first speculative building built in this area was built by CIDC (CAIDC) for Holiday manufacturing corporation at the airport in the early 1960’s.

In late 2001, International Paper Company deeded to CAIDC much of the old paper mill facilities valued at $4,500,000.00. These properties include: the main office building, Bagpak warehouses, recycling building, hazardous materials building, 58 acres north of the mill, 21 acres on the river near River Woods along with water pumps & pipelines and the railroad track  inside the mill complex. In October 2005, CAIDC acquired approximately 5 acres of land located where the old Tastee Freeze and Ames Oil company was located. This is just North of the 58 acres already owned by CAIDC. With the assistance of Ouachita County we were successful in removing the old gas station and cleaning up this eyesore of a site.  In July 2007, James Lee Silliman was retained by the board of directors as CAIDC’s first Executive Director, with offices located in the Camden Visitors Center (Old Mo-Pac Depot). We completed the purchase in December 2007 of the remaining  mill property from International Paper. This includes 53 acres of mill site, Bagpak engineering office, first aid building, shop building and the scale house/guard house.CAIDC has been successful in locating new tenants and creating jobs in parts of the warehouse facilities.

Our current tenants include: Chambliss Bridge Company with five employees, Paper Tigers Company with approximately 17 employees, and Two Bayou Woodyard currently with 1 employee and numerous sub-contractors. The prospects for more tenants/employment in the remaining buildings and sites is good. We are currently in ongoing discussions with several prospects that could generate a significant number of jobs in the next two years.