| Historicial Development: | John C. Miller had been sawmilling in Camp County as early as 1897, when he had bought timber from A. W. Kitchens. His sawmill and planing mill company appeared in the January 1905 Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association (Chicago) at Pittsburg, Camp County. A J. C. Miller also appeared at La Fayette in Upshur County. By 1906 Miller had merged with a Dallas company to form the Patterson-Miller Lumber Company, with offices at Fort Worth. The company was taking the cut of other firms. For example, L. L. Beene, through J. B. Reynolds, mortgaged in 1906 his sawmill plant with the Patterson-Miller Lumber Company of Pittsburg. Originally the A. C. Hogan mill, it was located about six miles east of Newsom and twelve miles southwest of Pittsburg. Property besides the sawmill itself included the machinery, planer, a log wagon, and 150,000 feet of lumber on the yard and two million feet of standing timber. The sawmill cut was contracted to Pittsburg Lumber for the following twelve months. In 1907, the listing in 1905 for J. C. Miller was replaced with Patterson-Miller Lumber Company. The company offices were located at Fort Worth. The company bought part of the tram road and rolling stock of the Commercial Lumber Company of Gilmer in 1907, including twenty tracts of land, two standard gauge locomotives (#s 7 and 999), twenty-four logging cars, six mule teams of fifty-four mules total, nine extra mules and five horses, twenty-seven sets of harnesses, seven miles of #35-pound rails from Graceton to Stamps, where it connected to the Texas Southern Railway Company, all for $60,000.
Patterson-Miller Lumber Company of Pittsburg sold its planing mill west of the grave yard and north of the Flatan plot plus other property in Camp County to R. A Morris in 1908. Equipment included machinery, tram ways, and all furnishings. The sale specifically excluded the wagons, mules, and harnesses located at the planing mill.
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