C. Bender and Sons was a Houston-based lumber mill company with mills at Houston, Humble, and Holshausen (later Laurelia) in Polk County along the roadway of the Houston East & West Texas. In Houston, their two-block plant contained a mill with sixteen planing machines, a boiler house, and other buildings. Almost 200 workers handled half a million feet monthly. In 1894, Charles Bender, Jr., supervised this operation.
While listed in Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association, January 1905 , it is not listed in the “Lumber Mills of Texas,” Southern Industrial and Lumber Review, of September 6, 1906. The family either closed or sold the Houston mill and concentrated the milling effort at the plants at Humble and Laurelia.