Organized at Center in January 1904, the Shelby County Lumber Company's directors were Thomas Davidson, R L Carroll, and J W Saunders. Shelby County Lumber Company had a mill at Center, according to the January 1905 Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association, as well as at Neuville. On January 15, 1905, the company mortgaged to First National Bank of Center for $5,000 an Atlas engine, an Atlas boiler, a Hall & Brown planing machine, a matcher-surfacer, about an hundred thousand feet of lumber stacked at the mill at Neuville, thirty-one horses and mules, wagons, and tools. The planer building was 34-ft by 100-ft with 600 feet of dollyways. The sawmill was in a corrugated iron building 324-ft by 100-ft with 200 feet of dolly ways. Logging was carried on by eight log wagons pulled by horses, oxen, and mules.
In October, the company mortgaged to Valley Lumber Company for $5,000 an Atlas boiler, an Atlas engine, a saw mandrel, a Fisher & Davis sawmill, carriage and set works, an edger, a shotgun steam feed, a slab conveyor, two 60inch saws, a 48-inch saw, a 24-inch cutoff saw, an iron building a planing-mill engine, a boiler, a matcher, a surfacer-matcher, a planer building, eight log wagons, horses, mules, and oxen. In November 1905, The company mortgaged two hundred thousand feet of lumber to a bank for $570.
Southern Industrial and Lumber Review reports the mill was cutting 40,000 feet daily in 1906. Creditors against Shelby County Lumber Company filed for federal-directed bankruptcy of the company. Although the directors protested, the federal court at Tyler in Smith County granted the petition. The company did not appear in the credit firm's published records of January 1907.