The Directory of Texas Manufacturers, 1956-1958 lists the plant of the Atlas Plywood Corporation at Center. Established in 1953 and employing more than 250 personnel, the plant was producing plywood panels and flush doors in 1956. The E. L. Bruce Company, a hardwood flooring manufacture of Memphis, Tennessee, bought the Atlas Plywood Company plant at Center in 1957, according to The Texas Forest News. The sale involved transfer of a twenty-acre site, a 100,000 square factory, several buildings and a warehouse, and machinery for manufacturing hardwood plywood. E. L. Bruce Company contacted the TFPMA in 1969 concerning the feasibility of finding a burner that would dispose of wood waste in accordance with the standards of the Texas Air Control Board. The company's application for membership, dated November 14, 1969, reveals that Robert O'Donoghue was vice president and that the mill was producing lumber and plywood products.