[1] The county was organized on December 14, 1837, and named for the Sabine River, which forms its eastern border.

[2] Like other eastern Texas counties, Sabine was originally developed as cotton plantations, which depended on the labor of numerous enslaved African Americans.

After the Civil War and emancipation, many freedmen remained in the rural area, working as tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

After 1877 and through the early 20th century, Sabine County had 10 lynchings of blacks by whites in acts of racial terrorism.

[3] From 1930 to 1970, the population declined as many African Americans left this rural county and other parts of the South in the Great Migration to escape Jim Crow oppression and seek better jobs, especially in Northern industrial cities and on the West Coast, where the defense industry built up during World War II.

[10] In July 2021, Sabine County ranked the highest in the United States for cases of Coronavirus per 100,000 people.