The firm of Allen & Williams was one of many early East Texas sawmilling businesses to follow the construction of the railroads to tap the most easily accessible pine stumpage. The company appeared in a 1880 Chicago lumber publication as operating two mills south of the Trinity River, near the tracks of the Houston East and West Texas Railway. Allen and Williams moved their mills to the area of Gail in Polk County with the post office at Corrigan.
The Manuscript Census of 1880, reporting for June 1, 1879 to May 31, 1880, detailed the business operations for both sawmills. Mill #2, d a capital value of $12,000, working twenty-five men normally and thirty-two at peak. The employees received daily wages of $1.40 to $4.00 for ten hour days, summer and winter. Allen & Williams paid a total wage of $8,000. From a total value of $28,000 of supplies and sawlogs, the sawmill manufactured five million feet of lumber valued at a gross value of $48,000.