Robertson Cheatham in 1927 in Augusta, Georgia as the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Co. Over the years it expanded, adding sawmills and plywood lumber mills. The company acquired its first West Coast facility in 1947 and changed its name to Georgia-Pacific Plywood & Lumber Co. in 1948. In 1956, the company changed its name to Georgia-Pacific Corp. In 1957 the company entered the pulp and paper business by building a kraft pulp and linerboard mill at Toledo, Oregon. The company continued to make a series of acquisitions, including US Plywood in 1987, Great Northern Nekoosa in 1990, and the Fort James Corporation in 2000. The Fort James Corporation was the result of a series of mergers of enterprises that included the Fort Howard Corporation, the James River Corporation and Crown-Zellerbach. In August 2001, Georgia-Pacific completed the sale of four un-coated paper mills and their associated businesses and assets to Canadian papermaker Domtar for US$1.65 billion.

It was announced on November 13, 2005 that Georgia-Pacific would be acquired by Koch Industries. On December 23, 2005, Koch Industries finalized the $21 billion acquisition of Georgia-Pacific. Georgia-Pacific was removed from the NYSE (it had traded under the symbol GP) and shareholders surrendered their shares for about $48 per share.

The Georgia-Pacific Tower in Atlanta continues to house the company's headquarters.

On January 11, 2010, Georgia-Pacific signed an agreement to acquire Grant Forest Products' oriented strand board ("OSB") facility at Englehart, Ontario and the associated facility at Earlton, Ontario, as well as its OSB facilities at Clarendon and Allendale, South Carolina, for approximately $400 million. The transaction closed in July 2013, following Canadian regulatory review and US court approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino merger review process.