The Smyth Brothers founded the Sabine Tram Company in 1889 when its mill at Deweyville mill began operations. Deweyville, adjacent to the Sabine River and about one and one-half miles north of Ruliff, a point on the Kansas City Southern railroad in southern Newton County, was named after Admiral George Dewey. Alexander Gilmer, the noted Orange sawmiller, was the secretary-treasurer of Sabine Tram in 1892, according to a company letterhead. The mill was connected to the Kansas City Southern system at Ruliff by its tap-line, the Sabine and Northern Railroad Company. Sabine Tram and Texarkana and Forth Smith, a part of the Kansas City Southern, built the tap-line in 1899. Sabine Tram furnished the right of way, did the grading, and provided the ties, while the Texarkana and Fort Smith supplied and laid the steel. The tram road conducted trackage and switching operations until 1921 for the sawmill complex. The Interstate Commerce Commission reported in 1912 that the Sabine Tram Company held approximately 60,000 acres of timberlands in Texas and around 23,000 acres in Louisiana. The Sabine Tram mill at Ruliff appeared in a 1915 directory of sawmills as having a daily cutting capacity of 150,000 feet. The mill's specialties were export lumber, railroad timbers, and yardstock. The company added a hardwood mill in 1917 before a fire that destroyed the complex. Sabine Tram built a new mill, which became operational in February 1918. Peavy-Moore bought the Sabine Tram mills at Deweyville in 1919 and all its timber. Fires destroyed the pine mill in 1919 ($100,000 in damage), in 1922, and in 1925. In 1928, the pine mill rated at 125,000 board feet per day. Its hardwood mill, consisting of a single band headrig, rated at 35,000 board feet per day. Kurth Lumber Company bought the mill in 1942. A year later it burned.
Black workers were not employed until 1917-1918, when the World War caused a labor shortage. The company hired both blacks and Mexicans after that.