Albert Pattengal's 15-horsepower steam sawmill in Enumeration District 11 of the census of 1880 operated for two months during that census year. It was valued at $1,500 and Pattengal paid from $0.90 to $1.50 per day in wages to four men for ten-hour shifts. He paid out a total of $200 in wages. Pattengal logged on his own lands. The sawmill produced, from $1400 worth of sawlogs and supplies, one hundred thousand board feet worth $900. The firm was listed as Pettingill and Hoaten in the Rand, McNally and Company's Directory and Shipping Guide of Lumber Mills and Lumber Dealers for 1884.
J. M. Hooten, in 1899, executed a deed of trust to T. W. Allsup as Trustee in order to secure sawmilling equipment shipped in 1898 from Torrans Manufacturing Company of Jefferson, in Marion County. The record indicates that the siding was two and a half miles west of Avinger, while Pettingill Switch was located two miles north of Avinger. Equipment included a 44-inch Sterne boiler, an 111-inch by 14-inch Bland steam engine, the complete sawmill, and two log wagons with twelve oxen.
County records further reveal that Hooten soon defaulted, and Brown Lumber Company ordered its Trustee, W. W. Woods, to sell the property. Apparently, the financial problem was resolved, for J. M. Hooten's saw mill appeared in the 1905 and 1907 editions of the Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association.