The Sturgis Lumber Company was organized by Albert and Walter Boynton, along with Simon Henderson of Keltys, Texas. The brothers also had operated sawmills in Angelina, Panola, and Newton counties. The Boynton brothers moved their mill from Logtown, Newton County sometime between 1912 and 1917 to Sturgis, San Augustine County, near White City.
The mill appeared in the 1928 edition of the Southern Lumberman's directory of sawmills as manufacturing ash, beech, elm, black, red and sweet gum, hickory, red and white oak, and longleaf and short leaf pine lumber at 50,000 feet per day. The Boynton mill operation at Sturgis had a logging road and a town commissary.