The Dayton Lumber Company was organized in December 1905 by the Alf Bennett Lumber Company of St. Louis, with John Louis Fouts as president and Alfred Bennet vice-president. A mill complex was soon built at Dayton, and it began operations in August 1, 1906. Timber holdings consisted of 23,000 acres in Liberty County on the west side of the Trinity River. Logging operations initially were only one mile to the north; by 1910, logging extended a full twelve miles north. The company railroad was organized as the Trinity Valley & Northern Railway, and it consisted of a 60-ton rod engine and thirty-five log cars. The mill area was lighted by an electric light plant. Commissaries were located at Dayton, the mill, and at Fouts, a logging town about ten miles north of the town. Dayton Lumber defaulted in 1912 on a chattel mortgage to a group of creditors led by Champ Ross, who took the mill and changed its name to Dayton Mills Company. On January 7, 1920, South Texas Hardwood Company of Harris County, bought out Dayton Mills. The South Texas Hardwood Company was a Houston based operation, with mills at Cleveland and Dayton in 1934. The mill had no log pond. Employment was around 225 men in 1910. The mill plant contained, in addition to the saw mill proper, a planing mill and three National dry kilns. The city of Dayton donated a 100-acre tract to Dayton Lumber Company. The community of Dayton continued to grow around the mill. By 1910, it employed between 125 and 150 personnel. By 1915, it had a newspaper, a bank, and thirty or more businesses. Only seventy-five employee houses had been built by the mill: they were supposed to be good for the time. The town ran the school system, plus it had local churches unconnected with the mill. A. E. Kerr was mill manager, M. Hopkins, auditor; and R. B. Edgar, local sales agent. Other important mill personnel were J. H. Byerly, B. F. Cooper, F. I. Cleveland, J. T. Hastings, and C. A. Nye. J. J. Balderalch was the auditor and A. A. Williams, L. Perkins, and C. L. Feagin served on the TV&NRR staff.