The Texas Forest News reported that Tracy Bland had been operating a small sawmill plant for almost twenty-five years in 1966. Bland used a steel winch boat he designed to snag “sinkers” out of the river. Williams' interviews with Bland and his family reveal that the lumberman cut cypress logs which he sold locally. Williams does not mention a winch for retrieving “sinkers” from the Sabine. Instead, he writes that Bland would dive to retrieve “sinkers,” some as many as fifty years earlier.