Clinton Randolph's family had been sawmilling in Walker County since the close of the Civil War. Census Records of 1870 and 1880 list him as a “sawmiller” although no sawmill is enumerated in his name. A sawmill, in 1870, was enumerated in the name of his brother Taylor Randolph. In the 1880 Census, Clinton's son, James Randolph, living in the same residence with his father, is listed as a “sawyer.” The first record linking an actual sawmill with Clinton Randolph appears in the Walker County record, filed June 3, 1882. A chattel mortgage noted that Clinton Randolph mortgaged his sawmill, gin, steam machinery, and “150,000 feet of lumber on a tract of 555 acres, part of the Juan Sanchez league . . .” to D. D. Alston.
His sawmill was listed in an 1884 railroad directory.