George W. Hooks and Dr. S. B. Turner built a sawmill of 20,000 board feet per day capacity at a point eleven miles southeast of Kountze in 1886. The site became known as Sharon or Hooks' Switch. In April 1892, Dr. Turner died and the name of the company was changed to Hooks Lumber Company. Grief and tragedy was only beginning, however, for just days after Dr. Turner's death, a boiler explosion at the sawmill killed four workers and seriously wounded six others. More troubles followed. A Kirby Lumber Company publication of 1902 recorded that the “hard times of 1894-95” (when yellow pine market conditions were poor) forced the lumber company to ask for a receiver. The mill did not run regularly under receivership, and it was eventually sold to the J.F. Keith Company in 1899. The town name was changed from Sharon to Ariola, for Eduardo Ariola, the original land grantee there. Little is known about the mill under Keith ownership. Kirby Lumber Company bought the mill and took control on January 1, 1902. The mill site was then sixteen years old. Kirby immediately replaced much of the small capacity machinery and increased the mill's capacity from 20,000 to 60,000 board feet per day. A pond was built near the mill to supply the boilers with water, but it was not used to float logs. When Kirby purchased the Ariola mill, the stumpage was estimated at fifteen years. A Kirby evaluation of the facility in 1904 further confirmed this, recording that the timber supply was “very large,” being mixed long and short leaf pine, but that the quality was “much below average.” Other negative remarks included the dislike of the mill having been built “on (the) ground and without modern conveniences” and the lack of an adequate log pond. When the mill burned in March 1905, Kirby chose not to rebuilt this plant. The Kirby mill plant at Ariola included a planing mill and a 15,000 board feet per day Standard dry kiln in 1904. The dry kiln was in a wooden building, and these two items, together, were valued at $11,142.24. The entire plant was valued at $48,742.24.