Waterman Lumber Company had lumber plants in 1915 at Blocker and Timpson, although the latter was almost cut out. When the Blocker plant of the Waterman Lumber company burned in 1918, the company began building a new plant at Waskom. The company ordered from Lufkin Foundry & Machinery the following: a Front Elevation of Mill Frame, a #2 Railed Feed Conveyor, a #1 Bailer Feed Transfer, an an Elevation of Bailer Feed Conveyor. The Waskom plant was a complete lumber-milling facility with band, circular, and gang saws, planing mills, dry kilns, and an electric light plant. The company operated its own mill town with tenant housing.
A History of Panola County, 1819 - 1978 notes that the original name of the community was Lorene. The sawmill town consisted of 100 frame houses, housing several hundred inhabitants plus four hundred workers, two hundred in the mill and two hundred on the woods crews. The community was served by a commissary, a hotel serving thirty boarders, and a two-teacher school for black students. White students were bussed to area schools.
Frost Industries, Inc., bought the plant in 1928 and closed it in 1952. The Lufkin Daily News reported that Frost Lumber operated mills at Waskom and Nacogdoches in 1943. The latter plant was under the auspices of Frost Lumber Industries. The Waskom mill had the capacity to cut both pine and hardwood lumber. The facility was still listed in the 1957 edition Directory of Wood-Using and Related Industries in East Texas.