In 1908 Sheldon was platted, and that year a land office opened. By 1910 a new 8-grade school was built in town. The town had a barber shop and two saloons - one with a dance hall upstairs. It had two hotels: the Hotel Walter and the Sheldon House. They mainly housed lumber workers. Logging was the big business then, with the John S. Owen Company logging north of town. In town, several mills sawed boards, including the Jump River Lumber Company's mill, which employed more than forty men until it burned in 1912. These mills produced boards mostly for local use, but Pickering's lath mill shipped out its product on the railroad. A train stopped once a day, heading north one day and south the next, and carrying passengers of course, since the roads were terrible. Herb Duel, Sr. installed the first telephones in 1910, with a switchboard in the Hotel Walter. Lacy brought the first car, a 1909 Ford, to town in 1910. In 1917 the village of Sheldon was incorporated, with population 123.