The Keystone mill at Waukegan appeared in several directories and lists of sawmills between the years 1904 and 1915. Daily capacities ranged from 40,000 to 100,000 feet. The Galveston Daily News reported on September 12, 1896, that the mill was “running on full time.” On July 1, 1896, the mill paid $1,280 to the General Land Office for the timber on county school lands. This mill prior to Keystone Mills belonged to E. L. Arnold and O. P. Perkins, which they sold to Keystone in 1899.
On January 1, 1899, Arnold sold his interest in the operations to Perkins. Perkins, in return for $5,000, received Arnold's interest in the sawmill, including the planing mill and its machinery, the engines and boilers, all houses and sheds, one Shay locomotive, seven log cars, four log carts, one wagon, one mule, thirty-four oxen, three miles of railroad iron on the tram road, 400,000 of sawed lumber, and the commissary and merchandise. The Keystone Mills Company, of Conroe, Texas (officers: T. H. Garrett, president; J. F. Floyd, vice-president; and W. H. secretary-treasurer), organized in February 1899 with a d capitalization of $30,000. On February 16, 1899, Perkins sold the sawmill and planing mill to Keystone Mills Company (T. H. Garrett, President) for $6,282 in cash and 12 notes each for $500. Keystone received the sawmill, seventeen yokes of oxen, four log carts, seven tram cars, four and a quarter miles of iron tram rails of which one and a quarter miles were mounted on the tram, a Shay locomotive, fifty cottages, the commissary, mules, uncut timber, etc.
The Waukegan Transportation Company, according to Strapac, operated four locomotives over the company logging narrow gauge tram road.