P. M. Barber was the first person to come to Montgomery and establish an industry that achieved any sustainable success. He opened a distillery in 1859 and later a planing mill in 1869 on the site of the distillery. Barber, along with his partners, A.B. Henderson, Jesse Rank, and Nathan Fowler, had so much success that they laid out a town around their mill in 1870. The town was further expanded by the success of Montgomery Machine Shops, which, starting in 1873 under the supervision of Levi Houston, built woodworking machinery that was sold to clients throughout the United States and Canada and as far away as Australia.