Houston & Liggett announced in May 1906 that it was forming the Houston & Liggett Manufacturing Company with a mill to be constructed near Houston. W. G. Liggett was already running his own cedar pencil block factory in Houston, and involved with C. C. Houston in other matters. They bought a mill from Plummer & Matthews in 1907 at Magnolia (Tharp) in Montgomery County. By early 1907, the Houston mill was manufacturing brackets and insulation pins. W. H. Liggett was the general manager and F. C. Brown the superintendent.
The Southern Industrial and Lumber Review reported that seven sawmills operated along Buffalo Bayou in 1908. The Houston-Liggett Lumber Company had been two years earlier in the Fifth Ward of Houston. A sawmill and a hardwood factory were built. That year the plant has been enlarged. A band mill replaced the circular saw plus trimmers, edgers, and slashers were added. Lumber was sent to the National Dry Kiln Company kilns then manufactured into commercial implements and stock in the factory which used a band resaw. Operations also included a box and crate factory. Eighty-five employees helped to manufacture 50,000 board feet daily of products.A box and crate factory. 50,000 feet daily. 85 employees. National Dry Kiln Company kilns.
Southern Lumberman reported in October 1908 that the company had rebuilt the older mill in the Fifth Ward, replacing machinery with Fay & Egan equipment and doubling the capacity of the plant. The older plant had sawed oak and manufactured it into insulator pins for cross-arms.