Sour Lake is a city in
Hardin County,
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
, United States. The population was 1,773 at the
2020 census.
It was originally named "Sour Lake Springs", after the
sulphur
Sulfur (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundance of the chemical ...
ous spring water that flowed into the nearby lake.
The city is part of the
Beaumont–
Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sour Lake is the oldest surviving town in Hardin County.
[ It is called by some the "Gateway to the ]Big Thicket
The Big Thicket is the name given to a somewhat imprecise region of a heavily forested area of Southeast Texas in the United States. This area represents a portion of the mixed pine-hardwood forests or " Piney Woods" of the Southeast US. The Nat ...
".
History
Image:Derricks at Sour Lake Texas.jpg, Oil derricks at Sour Lake,
File:Sour Lake oil leases.jpg, Sour Lake oil leases
Sour Lake was first settled around 1835 when the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas
Coahuila y Tejas, officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila y Tejas (), was one of the constituent states of the newly established United Mexican States under its 1824 Constitution.
It had two capitals: first Saltillo (1822–1825) f ...
granted Stephen Jackson one league
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
* ''League of Legends'', a 2009 multiplayer online battle a ...
of land covering by land grant.[ ]Sam Houston
Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two indi ...
visited Sour Lake in his later years.[ The town is home to one of the biggest ]sinkhole
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...
s in Texas.
Sour Lake became a short-lived boomtown with the discovery of oil in 1901, shortly after oil was found at the nearby Spindletop
Spindletop is an oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas, in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindlet ...
salt dome
A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when salt (or other evaporite minerals) intrudes into overlying rocks in a process known as diapirism. Salt domes can have unique surface and subsurface structures, and they can be discovered us ...
.[ It is known as the birthplace of ]Texaco
Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Independ ...
.[ Formed in 1903, the Texas Company (Texaco's former corporate name) is one of the three major oil companies that can trace its origins to the oil fields around ]Southeast Texas
Southeast Texas is a cultural and geographic region in the U.S. state of Texas, bordering Southwest Louisiana and its greater Acadiana region to the east. Being a part of East Texas, the region is geographically centered on the Greater Houston a ...
. The Sour Lake oilfield produced about of oil up to 1948, when it was producing about daily and new drilling was still underway.[ Today the Sour Lake oilfield is the oldest continuously producing oil field in the world.
The town of Atcheson in Bruce McCandless's 2012 novel ''Sour Lake'' appears to be based at least loosely on the real Sour Lake. Atcheson, like the real-life Sour Lake, is situated in the Big Thicket and experienced a short-lived oil boom in early years of the 20th century. Yvette Benavides, in a ''San Antonio Express-News'' review of the book, noted, "There is a lot that is historically factual in this novel. That's part of the fun of reading ''Sour Lake''."]Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
ian jungle town commonly referred to as Lago Agrio
Nueva Loja (), also known as ''Lago Agrio'', is the capital of the province of Sucumbíos in Ecuador. It was founded in the 1960s as a base camp of Texaco. The official population as of the 2022 census is 55,627.
Overview
Nueva Loja is located i ...
was named after Sour Lake by Texaco when the company established the oil-producing settlement. ''Lago Agrio'' is Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
for "Sour Lake". The official name of the Ecuadorian town is Nueva Loja
Nueva Loja (), also known as ''Lago Agrio'', is the capital of the province of Sucumbíos in Ecuador. It was founded in the 1960s as a base camp of Texaco. The official population as of the 2022 census is 55,627.
Overview
Nueva Loja is located i ...
.
Geography
Sour Lake is in southern Hardin County at the intersection of state highways 105 105 may refer to:
*105 (number), the number
* AD 105, a year in the 2nd century AD
* 105 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC
* 105 (telephone number), the emergency telephone number in Mongolia
* 105 (MBTA bus), a Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority ...
and 326. Highway 105 leads west to Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
, and east to the US 69
U.S. Route 69 (US 69) is a major north–south United States highway in the central United States. When it was first created, it was only long, but it has since been expanded into a Minnesota to Texas cross-country route. The highway's ...
freeway in the northern part of Beaumont. Highway 326 leads north to Kountze
Kountze ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hardin County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,981 at the 2020 census. The city is part of the Beaumont– Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Kountze was originally estab ...
, the Hardin county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
, and south to U.S. Route 90
U.S. Route 90 or U.S. Highway 90 (US 90) is an east–west major United States highway in the Southern United States. Despite the "0" in its route number, US 90 never was a full coast-to-coast route. It generally travels near Int ...
at Nome
Nome may refer to:
Country subdivision
* Nome (Egypt), an administrative division within ancient Egypt
* Nome (Greece), the administrative division immediately below the ''peripheries of Greece'' (, pl. )
Places United States
* Nome, Alaska
...
.
According to the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the city of Sour Lake has a total area of , of which , or 1.21%, are water.
Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 1,773 people, 820 households, and 620 families residing in the city.
As of the census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 3.18% African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.36% Native American, 0.42% Asian, 0.42% from other races, and 1.26% from two or more races. Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race were 3.00% of the population.
There were 672 households, out of which 31.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.8% were married couples
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 9.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.6% were non-families. 31.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 17.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the average family size was 3.15.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 27.5% under the age of 18, 6.8% from 18 to 24, 27.4% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64, and 16.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.0 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $30,300, and the median income for a family was $39,605. Males had a median income of $36,406 versus $24,500 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the city was $15,497. About 8.5% of families and 12.7% of the population were below the poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 14.1% of those under age 18 and 15.6% of those age 65 or over.
Education
Sour Lake is served by the Hardin-Jefferson Independent School District.
References
External links
*
City of Sour Lake official website
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070820074223/http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/aris/maps/maplookup.php3?mapnum=6300 1901 map of Spindletop & Sour Lake Oilfields
{{authority control
Cities in Hardin County, Texas
Cities in Texas
Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area