Research by W. T. Block reveal that the Josey & Highsmith sawmill enumerated in the 1880 Census in Enumeration District 157 belonged to Evander Josey and E. W. M. Highsmith. Chattel mortgages filed November 6 and 11, 1880, indicate that Josey and Highsmith possessed a steam-powered sawmill and grist mill, located on seven acres about one-quarter mile south of the International & Great Northern Depot at Dodge on the John Carothers league.
The Census of 1880 revealed that the mill employed twenty-five men at peak production and twenty normally, earning $1.00 to $1.50 daily for ten-hour shifts in the winter and eleven-hour shifts during the summer. Highsmith paid out $5,000 total in wages. From $10,000 in supplies and sawlogs, the mill manufactured 1,760,000 feet of lumber, worth $16,000.
W. T. Block believes that William C. Josey took over his father's mill before 1890. He began serving as the last postmaster at Cincinnati in 1892. That year he mortgaged the mill to J. B. Jones for $1,455, the sawmill, machinery, equipment, “all on land purchased from M. C. Kelly [widow of John Felix Kelly, Sr.] near Cincinnati on the Trinity River, . .”. The Josey sawmill was sold to C. D. Oliphint in 1894 and moved to Oliphint Switch (later Elmina) near New Waverly.