Research by Kevin Ladd of Liberty County reveals that a W. F. Daniels Company operated a sawmill in 1914 at Felicia, just east of Devers. The information, based upon a Liberty Vindicator article of April 24, 1914, noted that the sawmill plant included a commissary and a tram road into the Big Thicket.
The W. F. Daniels Company may be one of the several sawmill operations of a Nacogdoches County sawmiller by the name of William Fleming Daniel. Daniel owned a sawmill two miles west of Kountze, in neighboring Hardin County, during this time period. Byrne-Renfro Lumber Company of Kansas City wrote to William Fleming Daniel, at Nome, on June 5, 1914 in response to a Daniel letter, dated June 1, 1914, inquiring as to the disposal of a shipment of lumber. The possibility exists that Daniel may have owned another sawmill south of Kountze at Nome, in Jefferson County. It is more probable that the operation referred to Byrne-Renfro involved the Felicia operation, located just a few miles to the west of Nome on the tracks of the Southern Pacific.
Mr. Ladd's notes includes the following: “see also interview notes, Liberty County Historical Commission, W. D. “Dode” Partelow 4/11/1972.”