There were 250 residents living in the town by 1896, along with Presbyterian and Methodist churches, a lumberyard, a mill, and a general store.

However, by World War I, the majority of the local timber had been cut, the mill had closed, and the plant had been destroyed.

Helen Kerr Thompson, a descendant of the original mill owner, set up a model farm in the 1920s.

The Waco, Beaumont, Trinity and Sabine Railway's failure, combined with the Great Depression's impacts, caused the project to fail in the late 1920s after the construction of a trading station, a community center, and several homes.

The Baptist Church of East Texas built a youth camp using the majority of the community's structures and a large portion of its equipment, which were sold to them.