The sawmill of Daniel Lumber Company at Porters was established in 1935. It burned on December 9, 1948. Insurance partially covered the $150,000 loss. The company estimated that rebuilding would take forty to sixty days to reerect operations in the two-story main building, which was forty feet by two hundred feet. The facility included a log pond measuring two hundred feet.
The Gulf Coast Lumberman reported on December 1, 1952, that the sawmill was closing after seventeen years of activity. The plant included a sawmill with a cutting capacity of 35,000 feet daily, two planers, and double kilns. The co-owners, C. H. Daniel, Sr., and his sons J . W. Daniel, and R. W. Daniel, stated the reasons for the closing were the high cost and inaccessibility of timber.
The Directory of Texas Manufacturers 1956-1958 noted that the company was still operating a planing mill at Porter in 1957.