The Texas & Pacific Railroad built their Port Allen Branch between Port Allen and Ferriday around 1905. It helped open up the area with several communities growing along its line. Logging companies set up sawmills along the line and built their own railroads to bring the logs to the mill, As the land was cleared, farms were created. Unfortunately it was a high maintenance railroad due to damage caused by the frequent floods of the Mississippi River. As better and more levees were constructed along the river, the railroad found itself on the wrong side of the levee in two locations. Also the river was slowly moving westward in one location until the tracks were on the edge of the bank. In 1940 the line was abandoned between Lettsworth and Ferriday and a short time later the Mississippi River moved across the old roadbed between Slocum and Union Point.
Turnbull was one of the stations along the railroad. The site of the community was a little north of this cache.