The second largest town in the county, it is largely dependent on the sawmill of the Panhandle Lumber Company, which employed about 150 workers. About a mile northeast of town is some good skiing terrain, and the winter festival of the Ione Ski Club is a popular local event. A notable building in town is the old Ione Depot (1909), on Main St. In 1906, an English engineer built a Portland cement plant about one-and-a-half miles north of Ione. This venture, one of the first attempts to make cement in this state, failed, and in 1934 the abandoned plant was destroyed by fire.