Join the AJ Shades Dealer Network in Putnam County, GA

Putnam County is Georgia’s Dairy Capital, and the title is earned: after the Civil War flattened the cotton economy, former New York banker Benjamin Hunt brought fifteen dairy cows to Panola Farm in 1876 and rebuilt the county around milk. The Eatonton Co-Operative Creamery shipped cream to Athens and butter to Atlanta by 1901, and today the first weekend of June still brings the annual Dairy Festival to the Courthouse Square in downtown Eatonton. Dairy families are the county’s backbone — land-rich, loyal, and quick to buy a product that proves itself.

The Oconee River runs along Putnam’s entire eastern border, and the reservoir it feeds — 19,000-acre Lake Oconee — gives the county its second economy. The east shore is lined with second homes, lake communities, and retirees who bought the water and the sunset. West-facing lake decks take punishing afternoon sun, evening insects own every unprotected porch, and a Somfy-powered motorized screen or a retractable awning is the purchase that returns the outdoor room to the owner. Two economies, one county, one shade line that serves both.

Putnam County holds two of the only bird-effigy mounds found east of the Mississippi. The Rock Hawk Effigy sits near the Wallace Dam off Route 16, surrounded by roughly 15 miles of hiking and biking trails, viewing towers, and interpretive centers covering 12,000 years of area history — free admission, 200-plus bird species, wetlands and forest. Its sister site, the Rock Eagle Effigy Mound — 102 feet long, 120 feet wide, built by Native Americans over 2,000 years ago and listed on the National Register of Historic Places — anchors the county’s heritage draw. Trails, lake, and history pull visitors who keep becoming homeowners.

Eatonton itself is a literary town: founded in 1807 as the seat of newly formed Putnam County and named for William Eaton of the First Barbary War, it is the birthplace of Joel Chandler Harris of Uncle Remus fame, of author Alice Walker, and of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy. The Georgia Writers Museum and a walkable historic downtown give the county seat an identity no generic suburb can claim — and give a local dealer a hometown brand to build on rather than a territory to cold-call.

The buyer mix is the dealer’s advantage. Lake-east-shore second homes pay premium for premium shade, farm and dairy buyers spend on durability and refer across church and county, and the manufactured-housing and ag-support economy around Horton Industries and the dairy belt keeps steady payrolls in the county. Piedmont summers run long and hot, insects run the evening shift, and nobody is running a wholesale dealer program in Putnam County — the Macon and Athens shade shops treat it as passing-through territory.

Our factory’s installation crews cover Southern California only, which leaves the Putnam County relationship wide open: wholesale American-made product, locally coordinated installation by your crew or Eatonton-area contractors you trust, and our factory training, measuring guidance, and technical support behind every job. A farm-country contractor, a lake-shore remodeler, or an Eatonton outdoor-living company can add the line with no trucks and no warehouse — and become the county’s first name in premium shade.