Haslam was drawn on paper as a lumber company town

Haslam was laid out for lumber work, not around a courthouse square. The Pickering Lumber Company formed the community to reach timber it owned near Joaquin. General manager Will Haslam drew the plans for the sawmill, planer, light plant, log ponds, shops, tram roads, offices, hotels, and homes built in 1913.

The plan split White and Black workers into separate housing sections. Macedonia Baptist Church stood in the community, and a Haslam post office opened in 1914. The company map ordered both the mill and the segregated town around it.

At busy times, the mill often ran 21 hours a day. Many workers lived outside town. Haslam reported about 250 residents from the 1920s through the 1940s and around 300 in the early 1950s.

Once nearby timber ran low, the sawmill slowed and closed. The post office closed in 1954, and the population had fallen to 40 by 1966. Haslam's history remains physical: ponds for logs, rails for timber, long mill shifts, and separate neighborhoods all drawn into the same company town.