Tom D. Cruce owned sawmill plants in Houston County during the 1920s. He sold one to A. A. Thomason and C. J. Willingham, who proceeded to mill pine and oak lumber about twenty miles east of Crockett. In October 1924, they sold thirty thousand feet of oak and pine lumber, which all of the lumber at their yard, to Smith-Murchison Hardware Co of Crockett.