The first historical record of B A Barnes Lumber Company is in the Sabine County Chattel Mortgage Register on April 2, 1903, when Barnes mortgaged to Dilley & Son for $900 a #2 1/2 6-inch by 15-inch double Mississippi planer-matcher with a cutting heads for flooring, beading ceiling, and shipping, and one 40-inch blower planing mill exhaust. The operation was both a sawmill and planer originally, but later became the only planing mill in Center. The company also worked as a factor for and loaned money to the other sawmillers in the area, financing small mills and mortgaging their entire output to his planing mill.
Barnes owned 2,000 acres of pine timber and 228 acres of other lands valued at $10,0000. He also five log wagons worth $500, a complete sawmill worth $6,000, notes on the J L Paton sawmill at Center worth $1,000, a commissary store and goods worth $1,000. His total worth was valued at $45,590 in 1905. His planing mill was located on fifteen lots in center, consisting of machinery, a planing mill shed, a commissary store, and other buildings.