Pryor & Son was listed in a railroad directory as having a sawmill at Rusk in 1884. The owners were Robert Pryor and Robert Pryor II (1866-1932). The elder Pryor operated his first mill in the Rusk area. The county records note that he mortgaged to the Murray Iron Works in 1881 for an engine and a boiler. He and his son at one time owned four of them.
Cherokee County History notes that “Pryor sawed lumber for use in building the Texas State Penitentiary, Kansas & Gulf Short Line Railroad (Cotton Belt Railroad), and Rusk College.”