Sidney Sweet chartered the Spartan Mill Company in 1846, bringing logs down the Sabine, across the lake, and cutting them at Sabine Pass. In 1848, Sweet sold the mill to Hubbell, who a year later sold the mill to Bradbury, Brown, Ketchum, and Granger. The mill was abandoned for a short time because of economic difficulties. In 1850, the mill had a $12,000 capital investment, and its raw materials included 4,000 logs and 200 cords of wood. It produced that census year 1,200,000 feet of lumber valued at $23,000. Fifteen men worked for a total monthly wage of $637.
In 1858, Judge D. R. Wingate bought the mill, and worked it with a combination of white labor and thirteen slaves. In the census of 1860, the mill turned $11,980 worth of logs into a production value of $43,680. Ten men earned $300 total in monthly wages. In 1860, a boiler explosion killed and maimed several workers. The Gulf Coast Lumberman asserted that Wingate employed “whipsawing,” the use of two men working a pitsaw with human muscle, as the source of energy for the mill. Perhaps this occurred when steam power was not available during repairs. By 1860, Spartan Mill Company was the largest sawmill operations in Texas, capable of cutting 30,000 feet daily of lumber.
Like his brother-in-law, Alfred Farr, of Farrsville, Newton County, Wingate operated a combination plantation/lumber mill operation. Unlike his Farr, Wingate expanded the mill's operations to provide milled lumber beyond the needs of local consumption. Wingate fled to the interior to Farr's mill and plantation when the Union Navy burned his mill.