The firm of Allen and Williams was one of many early East Texas sawmilling businesses to follow the construction of the railroads to tap the most easily accessible pine stumpage. The company appeared in a 1880 Chicago lumber publication as operating two mills south of the Trinity River, near the tracks of the Houston East and West Texas Railway. Allen and Williams moved their mills to the area of Gail in Polk County with the post office at Corrigan by 1882. From 1889 to 1893, the mill had a daily capacity of 20,000 to 25,000 feet. The planer, in 1889, could finish 50,000 feet daily. The mill was not listed in “Texas' Timbered Wealth,” Galveston Daily News, January 1, 1900.
According to Ruth Peebles, A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, Allen & Williams were the first commercial company established in Corrigan. During the building of the railroad, it was claimed that small sawmills and large tie camps were located every few miles in every direction.
A newspaper report of 1889 noted that Corrigan had schools for both races and a population of about 1,000.
J. L. Henderson and Company operated a store in Corrigan. Jim, the father, was a noted gamesman. His son, Simon, would become Joseph Kurth's partner at Keltys in the Angelina County Lumber Company.