Joe R. Pierce, J. K. Chamness, and G. A. Smith owned a sawmill three miles northeast of Carthage in 1916. By 1919, Pierce and Smith were in business with a sawmill about six miles north of Carthage. That year they sold milled lumber at $25.00 per thousand feet to the Boynton Lumber Company for a partial payment of $8,990. The next year, Pierce & Smith mortgaged their operation to O. S. Wooley, J. P. Wooley, and A. E. Morgan of Longview for $3,000.
By 1929, Joe Pierce owned the company outright. He had loaned money to B. J. Crawford of the Shreveport Lumber Company; Crawford was unable to satisfy the debt. Pierce turned the matter over to the First National Bank of Carthage.