J. H. Summers and Sons, acting as Southern Mills Company, had bought out several sawmills at and near Trawick, in Nacogdoches County, after 1905. The Southern Industrial and Lumber Review reported in January, 1909, that Summers and Son were moving their mill to Montgomery County. A bill of sale recorded in Walker County records note, however, that J. H. Summers mortgaged his mill operation there to Commercial National Bank of Nacogdoches. The 1910 Census reveals that the Summers and Sons operation was located between those of J. C. Hill Lumber and Fink Lumber. The operation employed thirty-six workers, including J. H. Summers, sawmill owner; J. L. Traylor, planing mill foreman; W. F. Summers, mill manager; L. W. Smith, filer; W. G. Summers, commissary manager; Theodore Jergins, fireman; J. L. Alcorn, machinist; Jim Jones, carriage sawyer; J. T. Jones, woods foreman; John Hughes, blocksetter; M. Hughes, tailer; and F. Fisher, skidman.
Southern Mills Company bought a sawmill plant in Louisiana in 1910. Equipment consisted of a complete sawmill outfit, a planing mill, and a steam logging tram road. The contract was filed in Nacogdoches County because Southern Mills was listed as a Nacogdoches County business. However, the outfit, contracting the owner to move the mill to Texas, was probably dismantled and moved to the Summers operation in Walker County rather than Nacogdoches.