According to Bennett Lay, Peter Ellis Bean “put a sawmill in 1831 and used the first lumber to build his home” in Nacogdoches. Texas Forest News reported that the mill was four and a half miles east of town.
According to Phil L. Sanders, in his article “Early East Texas Saw Mills,” Peter Ellis Bean built the county's first sawmill “in the winter of 1829” about four and a half miles east of Nacogdoches on Carriso Creek [now spelled Carrizo Creek]. The mill, located on the upper Melrose road, cut lumber for the residences of Bean and others. Bean moved the sawmill to LaNana Bayou about eight miles south of Nacogdoches about 1834. Sanders' research at the county court house revealed that civil suits for recovery of money by Bean against Colonel Jose de las Piedras noted that Bean was manufacturing lumber, scantling, boards, planks and other building materials.