E. J. Audirsch bought a total of 720 acres from Hull Ramsey and Mrs. C. A. Ramsey, the land located on the James Tippett and Geo. Gillespie surveys, in February 1906. Audirsch intended to build a sawmill with the Ramseys doing the logging at $3.50 per thousand feet of lumber.
Audirsch took an individual named Prie as a partner, and they must have defaulted on the payments. Gaston and Hull Ramsey bought the Audirsch & Prie sawmill plant in Panola County, about eleven and a half miles from Carthage. The Ramseys, on July 12, 1907, executed a Deed of Trust to Robert Scott, Trustee, for $2,100 to secure the sawmill, machinery, buildings, sheds, etc.
Apparently, they took a partner by the name of Hill. The Ramseys, according to Panola County records, mortgaged their one-half undivided interest in the sawmill plant on June 22, 1908, in the sawmill of Hill & Ramsey, located about eleven miles southeast of Carthage. Equipment included an Atlas boiler, an Erie City steam engine, a Tower edger, belts, pulleys, a cut-off saw, four lumber buggies, etc.