The 158 employees at Anderson-Tully Lumber Co. are expected to lose their jobs in the wake of the company’s sale to an unnamed company.

The company, which has been in Vicksburg since 1889, announced the sale in a press release Friday afternoon.

The sale is expected to close May 15. Company officials said in an email they do not know if the new owners will keep the Anderson-Tully name at the mill.

“It is our hope that the new owners will re-employ as many as possible,” company president Richard Wilkerson said in the email.

According to the press release, the company agreed to sell its sawmill assets, which includes “substantially all the property, plant and equipment located at 1725 North Washington St.” to a company described as a “third party purchaser” that is a Mississippi-based business looking to expand its operational foothold in the state.

Pablo Diaz, executive director of the Vicksburg-Warren Chamber of Commerce, said economic development officials were working with the plant’s present management to learn as much as possible to get information about the transition to the new owner.

“There are a lot of details we still have to find out,” he said. “We hope as many employees as possible are able to keep their jobs, and we look forward to working with the new owners.”

A letter from the company to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security and local officials announcing the mass layoffs said the company “will permanently discharge all company employees working at the sawmill from their employment with the company.

“All positions and jobs at the sawmill will be affected, although some employees may be offered employment by the purchaser.”

“My biggest concern is that we can retain as many of the employees as we can,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said in regard to the sale. “The way I read that letter, they’re going to try to save some jobs, but they’re leaving the other company to negotiate some jobs. I want to minimize the number of jobs that are being lost.”

Warren County Board of Supervisors President Richard George said the board had not been told of the sale.

“We know nothing about it,” he said.

“That’s the terribly unfortunate part of the industrial world,” George said of the layoffs. “I hate it for the employees. Anything that we can do to help them retain their jobs, we’ll certainly make that effort. We hope for the best for the employees.”

According to the press release, the sale is the first part of a “winding down” of the Forestland Group’s ownership of Anderson-Tully.

The Forestland Group acquired Anderson-Tully in 2006.