On December 7, 1900, F. A. McMinn mortgaged with Smith Palmer Machinery Company, for $203, on the following equipment: a #1 sawmill, a 56-inch circular saw, an 8-horsepower Skinner & Wood boiler and engine, a 25-horsepower boiler and engine, a cotton gin, and a grist mill. The sawmill firm of F. A. McMinn and J. F. McMinn operated in Cherokee County during the early 1900s. They had a steam powered sawmill and did their own logging. F. A. McMinn et al mortgaged to G. S. Huston for $600 in 1907, pledging an engine and boiler. F. A. and J. F. McMinn in 1907 mortgaged for $75 to E. A. Goolsby three yokes of oxen. J. F. McMinn for $958 mortgaged in 1908 to G. S. Huston and the First National Bank at Rusk, pledging four yokes of oxen, a sawmill, a boiler and engine, 100 acres of pine timber, and 50,000 feet of lumber.
In 1909, J. F. McMinn executed several mortgages on his sawmill and milled lumber with the First National Bank at Rusk and a B. B. Perkins.