In 1894 the W. R. Pickering Lumber Company was established with yards in at
Springfield,
Lebanon,
Deepwater Ozark and
Pierce City, Missouri, as well as
Fayetteville and
Van Buren, Arkansas. The W. R. Pickering Lumber Company was incorporated in 1899, for a period of 25 years, with W. R. as president, W. A. Pickering, as vice president and manager, T. M. Barham as secretary, and R. E. Browne as general sales agent. 30,000 acres of virgin longleaf yellow pine was purchased and a modern sawmill erected in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, producing 200,000 board feet of lumber a day. The sawmill was located on the Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf Railroad, that is now the Kansas City Southern, and the village was named Pickering. By 1904 the
Louisiana Central Railroad had 75 miles of lines and 12 engines running at Neame,
Hornbeck, Barham, Pickering, and Cravens. In 1905 the Pickering Land and Timber Company was incorporated. Additional tracts of land were added and a second sawmill erected. The sawmill town was named Barham in honor of the secretary T. M. Barham. In 1905 41,000-acres of Wright-Blodgett Lumber Company (from Illinois) land was acquired 20 miles southeast of Pickering, on the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, and a third mill erected, with the village being named Cravens. The Sabine Valley Timber and Lumber Company was incorporated in 1909 for a period of 25 years operating mainly in
Shelby County,
Sabine County, and
San Augustine County, Texas. Other businesses were located in
Modoc County and
Siskiyou County, The Pickering Lumber Company purchased the
West Side Lumber Company and railway in 1925.
Other interests Pickering founded a bank at
Marionville, Missouri (1893-1897), and had a large amount of stock in the Bank of Springfield.
Business associates Thomas M. Barham, joined the W. R. Pickering Lumber Company as secretary on February 1, 1897. He had been a clerk in a grocery store, a salesman at a hardware store, a bank teller, a dry goods store worker, bank teller, the treasurer of the lumber company as well as secretary of the Louisiana Central Railroad Company and the Pickering Land & Timber Company. The town of Barham, Louisiana was named in his honor. ==Personal life==