Clevenger entered lumber business about 1898. His original mill was located about two miles west of Nacogdoches about 1899. When he cutout the timber, Clevenger moved in 1900 and 1901 to the final location on the Texas and New Orleans Railway. In 1902, he bought 585 acres from Blount & Wettermark for $4,977 in the N . de la Cerda grant about seven miles southeast of Nacogdoches. He added to it with 188 acres in the Isaiah Kirby Survey on the east side of Dorr Creek.
By 1904, the mill at Clevenger was cutting 50,000 feet daily with the latest of sawmill machinery. Two miles of steel-rail tram road had been laid into the pineries west of the tracks of the T&NO. The mill employed sixty men regularly. The company tram road had three miles of road, one locomotive, and fifteen tram cars. The logging camp was known as Royal. Loggers earned $1.50 per day. Cutting capacity had been increased to 75,000 bd-ft daily in 1906.
The community consisted of a commissary, forty houses, a school house, a church. The Company officers in 1905 were J. P. Clevenger, owner; B. M. Hickman, Manager; G. A. Dyer, Mill Foreman; Manager of the commissary and the postmaster, M. P. Hale; G. L. Watts, Woods Superintendent; B. J. Sisson, Mill Engineer; and Locomotive Engineer, C. A. Hawks.
The mill burned in 1910 and was not rebuilt. Clevenger, in the 1910 Census records, was listed as living in Nacogdoches at residence 38, Precinct 1. His occupation was still that of a lumberman and sawmiller.