The 8-horsepower steam sawmill of Jake Higginbotham ran 6.5 months during the census year ending May 31, 1880. During that time it employed five hands (two children under the age of sixteen) and operated on an eight hour day. Wages paid averaged from $1.00 to $2.50 per day, and the Higginbotham paid $400 in wages during the year. The mill did all its own logging. Higginbotham had $1000 invested in the mill. He logged in the vicinity of Turtle Bayou and shipped his product down the Bayou to Galveston Bay.
Higginbotham still operated the mill at Turtle Bayou in 1896, when in that year he dismantled and moved it to Wallisville or San Jacinto.