Bybee had been a partner with W. P. Vick in the Montgomery County Lumber Company sawmill at Willis from about 1907 to 1908. Both Vick and Bybee had been sold their interests to Bernard Brown.
In 1910, Bybee is listed as a sawmill owner in the 1910 Census, living at Res 147, Precinct 1. This may be the Pineview Lumber Company located, in 1918, two miles south of Willis. If so, Bybee had a partner named J. S. Patterson by that year. They were cutting under contract for Tyron and Carter of Houston at $10 a thousand feet of lumber. Patterson made a contract with G. B. Robinson to construct a sawmill on the Henderson survey south of Willis. Robinson would sell timber to Patterson for $5 per thousand feet, which Patterson would mill into lumber, mining props, and crossties.