The Martin Wagon Company company was an outgrowth of the enterprises of D. W. Martin, an inventor and craftsman, who had been making wagons of sorts in the early 1900s. The sawmill was built about 1910 to cut primarily hardwoods for manufacturing various logging wagons, carts, and buggies needed for the large East Texas sawmill industry. The The Zeagler family interests of Lufkin were involved fairly early in Martin Wagon Company. The business was profitable, employing over 100 workers in the Lufkin area. Martin wagons were distributed all over the United States, Mexico and South America. Although logging wagons were the firm's early specialty, oil field buggies and wagons were also manufactured.
The mill burned about 1930, and the coming of the Great Depression crippled the business, which went bankrupt in 1936. In 1939, the business was sold to Lufkin Foundry, which evolved into the large Lufkin Industries company.