Jessie A. Talley and Will Ball operated a sawmill at Ventura on Mill Creek, near Virgie, from about 1905 to 1907. That latter year Talley bought out Ball. By 1910, Banks Griffith & Son, associates of the Talley family, had acquired the Talley site. They sold it to the first of two Mill Creek Lumber Company, owned by W. D. Kendrick and J. R. Kendrick. This Mill Creek Lumber was also known as Kendrick Company.
The April 20, 1910, sale included the sawmill and planing mills, steam engine, boilers, edgers, trimmers, saws, etc.
Ferguson is listed as a sawmill owner in the 1910 Census, living at Residence 565, Precinct 10. G. H. Bruce was living two doors down at Residence 567 in 1910.
On June 27, 1911, W. D. Kendrick & Co sold the same property to a new Mill Creek Lumber Company, composed of J. L. Ferguson and G. William Ferguson, who agreed to assume all indebtedness. They failed to do so, and the business ended up again in the hands of Banks Griffith. Somehow, William A. Ferguson, a small mill owner located several miles away near Montgomery ended up with the site. He sold it to T. C. Curling in 1912.