W. H. Phillips of Hub Lumber Company operated his own sawmill about a mile south of Conroe during the 1950s. Phillips had a working relationship with O. F. Adams Lumber Company. Phillips tried to stave off financial problems with a mortgage on his equipment to O. F. Adams in 1953. The 1953 mortgage included the sawmill, a dry kiln, a planing mill, a Ross lift, thirty-seven steel wagons, a sawmill shed, a planer shed, a rough lumber shed, an office, an 100-horsepower electric motor, a Nacco end matcher, a Nacco ripper, a fifteen-horsepower electric motor, a five-horsepower electric motor, an American planer, a GMC truck, and one diesel 185-horsepower motor. Adams released the lien the following day to Phillips.
Difficulties, however, continued, and Phillips turned the lien back to O. F. Adams in August, 1954. Roy E. Hearn foreclosed on the plant and sold it to J. H. Williams for $12,995. The J. H. Williams Lumber Company appeared in the 1957 edition of Nelson T. Samson's Directory of Wood-Using and Related Industries in East Texas. The Directory of Texas Manufacturers 1956-1958 reported that Williams employed less than fifty workers. The company was listed in the Directory of Texas Manufacturers 1960.