S. B. Hayter had a sawmill in Nacogdoches before 1919. Hayter sold property and sawmill equipment in 1919 in Nacogdoches to T. M. Hooks. The property as then described is located from Pearl and Rusk Street on the northeast, south on Pearl Street, west on Powers Street, and north on Old Tyler Road to the small stream, then east to Pearl Street across the Southern Pacific tracks and Banita Bayou. Equipment included the sawmill, a planing mill, an automobile, mules, wagons, and other items. The T. M. Hooks mill in Nacogdoches was cutting 25,000 feet daily in 1928 from longleaf and shortleaf yellow pine, ash, beech, gum, hickory, oak, sycamore, and magnolia.
S. B. and R. H. Hayter sold the mill to J. E. Stone and Clyde Stone in 1926. Originally Stone was in the cotton ginning business. When the boll weevil destroyed his business, Stone rebuilt his gins as sawmills, milling at Pine Hill, Carthage, Center, and then Nacogdoches. In 1934, the 100 employees at the Nacogdoches mill worked under the NRA code scale for no less than $1.92 for eight hours. As of October 1943, J. E. Stone also operated a sawmill at San Augustine. The mill operated until the mid-1950s, normally with a crew producing between 30,000 and 40,000 feet daily.
J. McSwain told interviewer Vernon L. Beasley that he remembered that “Stone Lumber” operated in Nacogdoches from the 1920s to the 1950s and that the company operated a commissary and tenant houses.