W. H. “Uncle Bill” Spinks had a long sawmilling career in Cherokee County. His first sawmill, at Staton Lake, lasted until it burned down in 1890. H. Sides told oral interview V. L. Beasley that a sawmill existed long ago at Shooks Bluff on the Neches River. He did not know the name of the sawmill but that the site did have a commissary, a Masonic lodge, and tenant houses. The Cherokee County History reported that Spinks had built a wooden commissary and fifteen to twenty tenant houses. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1890.
He moved on to Kilraven, formerly Morton, at Spinks Switch, on the Cotton Belt and sawmilled there. He eventually bought into the Arkansas Lumber Company at Morton.
In 1880, he lived at Precinct 8 in residence 93, in or near Alto.
According to Frank Jones, son of Nelson Jones, in an interview with Professor John N. Craven in 1969, Bill Spinks' mill near Shook's Bluff was built early in the 1890s on the land of Nelson Jones. The site had a commissary and fifteen to twenty tenant houses. A fire, a lack of water, and the need for rail connections forced Spinks to move his equipment to Kilraven, along the Tyler Southern (or Southeastern). Spinks sold the Staton lake mill site to Nelson Jones in 1891.