[4] The unincorporated community of Wabeno was built in an area where timber had been cleared by a tornado in June 1880.

A brief lumber boom occurred when the Chicago and North Western Railway pushed a line through the tiny town.[when?]

In 1905, there were five sawmills in operation in Wabeno, producing 35,000,000 board feet (80,000 m3) of lumber per year.

[6] The unincorporated community of Wabeno is located 4 miles (6 km) from Northern Lights Bingo and Casino, run by the Forest County Potawatomi.

Other attractions in Wabeno include: an old-fashioned band shell located in the downtown green, a logging museum, a rare, and still functional, steam-powered Phoenix log hauler, a 20-foot (6.1 m) fiberglass statue of Larry the Logroller, a World War II–era Sherman tank, and a nineteenth-century log cabin still in use as the Wabeno Public Library.