John R. Brush a long-time employee with Angelina Hardwood Sales Company, in a conversation with Melvin C. Johnson on April 19, 1995, remembered that he began working with the company in 1949. Besides the main plant at Lufkin, the company had small hardwood mills during the early 1950s on Jack Island Road close to Echo and south of Mineola, in Wood County; near the railroad tracks on the west side of Palestine, in Anderson County; and near Orange, in Orange County, from 1952 to 1953. Brush worked as a hardwood lumber grader.