|
Sabine, on the west bank of Sabine Pass south
of Farm Road 3322 and thirty-two miles south of Beaumont in
extreme southeastern Jefferson County, was founded in 1878 by
New York financiers who objected to the price of waterfront
property at the town of Sabine Pass. By the winter of 1879-80 a
six-foot channel linked Sabine to the Gulf of Mexico, and in
1882 jetties were begun. Dock and port facilities were
installed, and the Windsor resort hotel opened. A post office
was established in 1899 but was discontinued sometime in the
1930s. Though the town served as the terminus of the Sabine and
East Texas Railroad, its growth was curtailed by heavy losses
from coastal storms in 1886 and 1900 and by competition from
Port Arthur. By 1914 the Texas and New Orleans Railroad was in
operation at Sabine, and the town had a population of 300, two
churches, several stores, and a school; at that time it also had
sulfur mines and shipped fish and fertilizer. The Sabine
population rose to 400 by 1925 and remained at that level until
the late 1940s; during this period the highest number of
businesses reported there was five. In 1933 the railroad was
discontinued and its installations removed. The 1936 county
highway map showed a school, several buildings, and scattered
dwellings near Kountze Lake. By 1949 the community had become a
fishing resort and had an estimated population of 250. Its
population numbered 260 from 1950 to 1964, rose to 310 in 1965,
and fell to 100 in 1966, when only one business remained. From
1972 until 1988 the population was estimated at seventy-five,
after which it was no longer recorded. In the 1990s a quarantine
station and a United States Coast Guard station were maintained
at the site, and Dick Dowling Park was a half mile south.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Beaumont Enterprise,
August 2, 1927, September 10, 17, 1933, July 4, 1948. W. T.
Block, A History of Jefferson County, Texas, from Wilderness to
Reconstruction (M.A. thesis, Lamar University, 1974; Nederland,
Texas: Nederland Publishing, 1976). James L. Rock and W. I.
Smith, Southern and Western Texas Guide for 1878 (St.
Louis: Granger, 1878).
Diana J. Kleiner
- Handbook of Texas Online, s.v.
","
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/hns2.html
(accessed March 3, 2008).
(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")
|
