Sabine Pass

Dunbar is just off State Highway 19 some five miles south of Emory in southern Rains County. The site was first settled in the 1890s and was originally known as Sabine Pass. A post office operated there from 1900 to 1904. The application for a post office required a different name, so Sam Aron, the first postmaster, chose Dunbar, probably for his former home, Dunbar, Tennessee. The first church in the community, organized by Al McKay, was called Zion Hill. Children attended school in nearby communities until 1904, when a second church building was used as a school. During the 1930s the settlement had a school, two churches, and two businesses. Its reported population in 1940 was fifty. After World War II the community's school and both of its businesses closed, and in the early 1990s only the church and a high school remained in the area. Dunbar's reported population in 1990 was forty.