Big Sandy Crate Manufacturing Company appeared in the January 1907 Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association as manufacturers of boxes, crates, and lumber. Smith County records note that the company was buying land and sawtimber in Upshur County in 1905. In 1907, it mortgaged 1,800 acres. That same year Judge D. E. Bryant of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Texas, at Tyler, adjudged the Big Sandy Crate and Basket Company to be bankrupt.
The company was sold by the Trustee, J. G. Reaves, to H. S. Cobb in July 1907. It was located on twenty acres of the John Carson headright survey in Upshur County. Buildings included two and a half story (50-feet by 100-feet) factory; a metal-roofed 100-foot by 16-foot platform adjoining the factory; a 30-foot by 60-foot metal-roofed veneer shed with a 30-foot by 16-foot by 2-foot steam vat; a 20-foot by 30-foot boiler house; a metal tank and various platforms; a half-roofed 50-foot by 30-foot sawmill shed; an 80-foot by 30.5-foot drying shed; a 20-foot by 30-foot barn; and two Arkansas dry kilns.