This cluster of frame buildings is a rare remnant of the sawmill communities that dotted the piney woods during the timbering era from the 1880s through the 1920s. After the formerly abundant forests of the Piney Woods had been cut down, the lumber companies abandoned the region beginning in the 1920s, and most mill complexes were dismantled. In 1916, W. S. F. Tatum (who later served as Hattiesburg mayor) established this mill site as the center of the company village he named Bonhomie. The sawmill closed in 1938 and was demolished, but four key adjoining buildings of local yellow pine remain. The residential-scaled Craftsman office features a wraparound porch where workers could congregate while awaiting their pay, delivered through the small window near the entrance. The gable-fronted commissary with its full-width porch provided necessities. One of the modest bungalows built for the skilled white workers survives. The church—Methodist in keeping with Tatum’s denomination—originally stood at the corner of Bonhomie and Tatum roads but has been moved to the complex. Other elements have vanished, including the company housing for black workers, the log pond, drying kiln, and railroad shop. Beginning in 2001, Oxford architect Tom Howorth oversaw the renovation of the remaining buildings for the Molpus Timberlands Group, a project that won an Honor Award from the Mississippi Chapter of the AIA.