This operation began in 1924 as a planing mill to refinish rough timbers of smaller mills. By January 1927, J. A. Herndon, formerly manager of Kirby's Bronson mill, became president of Trout Creek Lumber Company and began erecting a 25,000 feet, 60-inch circular unit to complement the planing mill and kilns already in operation. It worked steadily from 1924, generally employing about seventy-five men in the mill and the woods. One newspaper, in 1932, noted that the business, in a “period when lumber has been at its lowest ebb, the Trout Creek mill has operated continuously .” An Operating Statement, December 1936, recorded that the mill cut 533,715 feet in 234 hours (2,280 feet per hour). The planer ran 194 hours. An Operating Statement, May 1937 recorded that the mill cut 533,678 feet in 246 hours (2,169 feet per hour). The planer ran 137 hours.
Trout Creek was listed in the 1957 edition of Nelson T. Samson's Directory of Wood-Using and Related Industries in East Texas. The Beaumont Enterprise carried a Trout Creek Lumber advertisement in which it proclaimed that it had been in business for thirty-six years.