Waterman

Waterman is near the Attoyac River fourteen miles southeast of Center in southern Shelby County. It was founded about 1905 as a sawmill town and named for the owner of the Waterman Lumber Company. In 1906 the community received a post office; William M. Waterman was postmaster. A spur of the Santa Fe Railroad was constructed to the town, and by 1914 Waterman had a population of 476. Gradually, however, the timber owned by the company began to play out, and Waterman Mill closed abruptly in 1912 or 1913. Mill owners left for Wascom, where a new mill was built. Waterman Mill and all its land was sold to Frost Lumbering Industries in 1920. Most mill people were gone by the end of World War I. The post office was closed in 1926, and by 1938 Waterman was a small church and school community that served a scholastic population of fifty-seven. The school district was consolidated with the Center school district by 1955, and in 1990 Waterman had a population of fifty-three. The population remained the same in 2000.