Green B. Epperson, according to an account of 1900, had been living in Smith County since 1848. During the years, he had served as a Justice of the Peace of Tyler for four years, on Tyler's first board of aldermen, as the first foreman of the federal grand jury in the county, and as a trustee of the M-E Church, South. Epperson operated a sawmill about five miles east of Tyler on the Mound Trail, now the Tyler and Jamestown road. It was located next to a large spring. His lumber was sold in Tyler for housing construction. The Epperson and Green mill (worth a capital investment of $3,000) as recorded in the 1860 Census kept eight employees busy at a total monthly wage of $170. With raw materials including $900 in pine, $100 in oak, and $200 in other stock, the saw mill produced 750,000 feet of pine lumber worth $9,000 and 50,000 feet of oak lumber worth $1,000.
Epperson, after the Civil War, had financial problems. In September, 1865, he lost a case to P. H. Easle and was found to be indebted to Easle in the sum of $144.80. The local timber was soon cut out and the mill closed. Sheriff John B. McKinley was a partner of Epperson's. McKinley bought a another sawmill, just east of town after the Civil War, located at the Old Confederate Laboratory (see entry).