The editors of Walker County, Texas: A History recorded that “a center of activity in the Possum Walk community was an area on Possum Walk Road where Mr. George Pegoda owned and operated a cotton gin, sawmill, and grist mill, assisted by Mr. Charlie Bell. The site of the old mill area is still marked by a large mound, where sawdust and other by-products of the mills were once piled. Mr. Pegoda” was a carpenter, making furniture and even “his own coffin.”
The Census of 1900 enumerates the thirty-three-year-old George Pegoda, a German immigrant, as a “sawmiller” at Precinct 1, Residence 370.
Bell & Pagoda were listed as manufacturers of lumber in Huntsville in 1907.