Fur was the dominant commodity when Augusta was founded as an Indian trading post in the mid-1700s.
Decades later, it was cotton. As the Industrial Revolution swept through Augusta in the late 19th century, commerce shifted to textile manufacturing, which dominated commerce until the 1950s.
Since then, Georgia's second-largest city has enjoyed steady growth from a diverse economic base. Today, the metro area is supported by large government facilities, including Savannah River Site, Fort Gordon and the Medical College of Georgia, which are the area's three largest employers.
Augusta's private sector is home to a large service industry and a diverse manufacturing sector that produces everything from specialty chemicals and durable goods to paper and food products.
Many Fortune 500 companies produce some of the country's most visible products in Augusta, such as Tide laundry detergent, Huggies diapers, Murray cookies, Sweetheart plastic cups, John Deere tractors, and E-Z-Go and Club Car golf vehicles. And if you wear jeans, there's a good chance the denim was produced at a local Avondale Mills facility.
Augusta's unemployment rates have historically mirrored the state average, with the exception of the early- to mid-1990s, when post-Cold War downsizing at SRS nearly pushed the jobless rate into double digits.
Critical to Augusta's economic future is its standing as a regional health care and medical research center. MCG, University Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital, Doctors Hospital, two Veterans Affairs hospitals and Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center draw patients from across Georgia and South Carolina and provide the city with a steady infusion of money.
"Health care isn't a very cyclical industry; people spend the same whether the economy is good or bad," said Jeff Humphreys, a University of Georgia economist.
Augusta's dependence on the stable industries of government service and health care has meant the city hasn't enjoyed a major growth boom in recent years, such as what Atlanta experienced during the 1980s and '90s.
However, Augusta's slow-but-steady growth creates a predictable demand for goods and services, which translates to affordable taxes, utilities and housing costs.
In 2002, the five-county metro area scored a 91.5 on the national ACCRA cost-of-living index (100 represents the average American city), which is based on prices for a wide variety of goods and services.
IT'S A FACT
Augusta's average nonfarm employment from January through September 2003 was 198,000, the same as it was during the identical period of 2002.
