G. T. Tubbs had a 20-horsepower steam sawmill in Cherokee County in 1880. He later moved his operation across the Trinity River into Leon County. In 1898, it was located, according to Leon County records, eight miles east of Centerville on Mill Creek in the Brown pinery of the N. G. Moore League, just west of the Trinity River.
Tubbs sold the sawmill, known as The Farm Tubb Sawmill, a steam engine and boiler, a grist mill, two yokes of oxen, and a log wagon to S. L. Feathers and J. R. Ware for $700, on August 22, 1898. In January, 1902, S. L. Leathers sells his share to Ware. This sale included all “sheds and houses”, indicating the possibility of a sawmill community on the west bank of the Trinity River. By October of that year, Leathers had filed suit against Ware and regained, with Houston Yearby, the sawmill from Ware. Leathers passed the sawmill and property to Yearby the same day. On February 23, 1905, Yearby sold it all to J. F. Newton.