Blount & Smith Brothers had a tie mill in western Shelby County after 1900. They mortgaged 2,700 oak ties to the Bank of Garrison for $500 in 1908.
By 1910, Dunaway and Risinger were operating the mill. Dunaway was operating another mill close by in the area a few years earlier. Wilson-Strube Lumber Company loaned them a $1,000 on the following equipment: a 9-inch by 12-inch Ames engine and an Ames boiler, a 10-ft by 44-inch DeLoach edger, 1 sawmill complete, one galvanized tank, four lumber buggies, and one dust conveyor. Wilson-Strube took a lien on the mill until the debt would be paid. Apparently Dunaway and Risinger were not able to make their mill operations financially sound, for on
In 1912, the J. R. Bogue Lumber Company mortgaged to Blount and Smith Brothers for $550 part of the equipment “known as the Risinger mill outfit”: one International gas engine, a Reeves sawmill and carriage,and two saw edgers. Bogue most likely moved the equipment to his mill located on the Laborn Jopling place.