Hamblen and Sawyer first had a portable sawmill in San Jacinto County in 1941. The mill was probably located at or near Bear Creek. The equipment may have been part of the D. R. Sawyer sawmill in San Jacinto County in 1923, for the portable sawmill and its equipment was located on the farm of Henry Everitt, north of Cleveland.
Bear Creek Lumber Co bought sawmill equipment from R. B. Weatherall of Huntsville and mortgaged it on November 21, 1942, to the First National Bank of Cleveland. The property had been moved to the Bear Creek Lumber sawmill property at Bear Creek, sixteen miles northwest of Cleveland. A mortgage of 1943 lists the company's equipment: a saw mandrel, a 16-foot 3-block carriage, block and cable, three boss dogs, an edger, a trimmer, a 48-inch inserted-tooth saw, three rollers, a dust conveyor, a diesel engine, a planer-matcher, and all belts and pulleys.