A Brown Lumber Company existed at Ragley in 1897, with Hugh Williams as President and G. W. Brown as Secretary/Treasurer. A letter from Brown Lumber to Angelina County Lumber, dated March 24, 1898, reveals that the latter requested a price on boilers owned by Brown Lumber. Brown Lumber replied that the boilers “are in fair condition, have been in use several years.” The asking price was $1,000 for two and $600 individually. The company was represented in the “Report of Yellow Pine Clearing House Association, March, 1898,” a statistical trade organization, at St. Louis, Missouri.
The Brown sawmill did not last long at Ragley. It may have been the genesis for the Ragley Lumber Company sawmill there from 1900 to 1912. Both W. G. Ragley and Brown knew each other, having operated sawmills next to each other just south of Avinger in the 1890s.