The Hervey Lumber Company and its successor, the W. B. Cariker Lumber Company, manufactured at Kountze after the end of World War II until the late 1960s. In 1948, the A. E. Hervey Lumber Company (owners A. E. Hervey and W. B. Cariker) suffered a fire on June 3. The $50,000 loss, partially insured, included the planing mill, the dry kilns, and fifty thousand feet of lumber on trucks in the yard. By 1957, W. B. Cariker owned the company outright. The W. B. Cariker Lumber Company produced 5,702,493 board feet of lumber during 1960. In 1968, it was a member of the Southern Pine Inspection Board.
It generally employed about fifty personnel and had dry kilns, log stackers, lift trucks. It worked with shortleaf pine.