Fowler & Dunn operated a sawmill at Tharp's, or Magnolia Switch in the later 1880s. The first record of Fowler & Dunn is a transaction on August 2, 1889, when they sold 168,000 feet to Theodore Keller. By October 1889, the partners had apparently ended their relationship. Fowler sold to Dunn for $3000 on October 2 his undivided 1/2 interest in the stock of groceries, one steam engine, two gang edgers, one cutoff saw, one Shay tram locomotive, four log cars, two wagons, and twelve yokes of oxen, all at the sawmill of the late Fowler & Dunn.
On October 4, 1890, Dunn sold the mill to H. J. Montgomery (formerly of Montgomery & Company) for $9,700 to be paid in monthly notes in lumber. The assets included the former Santa Fe Lumber Company sawmill (including an engine, boiler, belting) and all logging property, eleven yokes of oxen, four log cars, one Shay locomotive, four log trucks, and uncut timber on Nichols, Hall and Rogers 100 acre tracts, the commissary and all its stock. H. J. Montgomery may have sold his stock to Plummer & Matthews.