A newspaper report carried an ad in 1900 for E. J. Hunt of Appleby, who was selling a 20,000-feet capacity sawmill. The plant included a planer with a daily capacity of 15,000 feet, a 25-horsepower steam engine, a 35-horsepower boiler, a 25-horsepower locomotive-style fire-box boiler, a yoke of oxen, and four log wagons.
Apparently, Hunt did not sell the mill in 1900, and it was damaged later by fire. By April 1903, Hunt had added a planer. He was having problem with the mill again, because later that year a newspaper report noted that G. W. Eason, as trustee, was selling 311,490 feet of lumber in stacks; an engine and boiler damaged by fire; one good boiler; a lumber wagon, a half-mile of pipe; thirty-four [tenant houses] beginning at the E. J. Hunt residence [in Appleby]; sheds. Casting and mill fittings, dollyways, marketable lumber, engines, boilers, and each house would be sold separately. All property was to be delivered at the mill site where it stood.
The Weekly Sentinel reported on 22 July 1903 that Frank Summers and W. G. Harrington, both of Nacogdoches, attended the buy-out sale of the bankrupt E. J. Hunt sawmill at Appleby. Summers and Harrington bought some of the lumber at $4.10 per thousand board feet, the planer shed and dollyways. Local farmers bought the tenant houses.