R. W. Snelling used the estate of R. P. Snelling to resurrect the latter's Kountze sawmill, if not the latter's body, at Woodville in 1887, the year after the hurricane had knocked it down. Initially, the sawmill's cutting capacity produced up to 30,000 feet daily of rough lumber, which was shipped to Nona for planing. In 1893, Smelling & Gagne increased the cutting capacity to 40,000 feet daily and erected a planing mill for the sawmill's product.
Snelling & Gagne did their own logging with one locomotive, five flat cars, and three miles of tram road.
The hurricane of 1886 wreaked disaster throughout the lower end of East Texas. The communities of Sabine Pass, Texas, and Johnson's Bayou, Louisiana, were completely leveled. Almost two hundred people drowned in the two communities.