William Carlisle and J.C. Pennel sawmill at Onalaska was operating in 1905. The plant, capable of cutting 50,000 board feet per ten-hour day, included a planing mill and electric light plant. After chartering the Beaumont & Great Northern Railroad in 1905, the company expanded its plant in 1907 by building a new 66-ft by 200-ft structure for its new double band and gang saws and increased the dry kilns to eleven. The new band saw plant was rated at 175,000 board feet daily, and, with the original circular saw mill still in operation, the combined capacity for the plant approached 225,000. J. M. West bought into the company by December 1909. West rebuilt the mill after it was devastated by a fire in 1915. It continued operating until the end of 1928. Onalaska had waterworks and electric street lights by 1909 for about 200 houses, three hotels, one commissary, one two-room school house, a ten-ton ice plant, and a six-bed “hospital.” Company housing cost $5.00 per month, and included lights and water. The superintendent's house also had steam heating. The company sponsored two baseball teams, segregated; and held barbecues. A private picture show was run by W. P. Christman. On the park in the fall would be held carnivals, merry-go-rounds, etc. Quarters were segregated for black (forty houses), whites (about seventy houses), and for Mexicans. For its logging camps, the company had seven “house cars” and one “commissary car.” The company used steam skidders and loaders, and operated seventy logging cars. To promote the sale of cutover lands, William Carlisle organized the Onalaska Livestock Company. Uncommon for sawmill towns, Onalaska was a dry town, and it was reported that the absence of liquor added to the town's “orderliness and quietude.”
The Gulf Coast Lumberman reported in 1928 that the mill had cut out that year. The mill was also listed that year in the Southern Lumberman's Directory of American Saw Mills and Planing Mills as an operating mill.