Editing Sour Lake, Texas (section)

==History==
[[File:Postcard of Sour Lake Springs Hotel, Sour Lake, Texas (10001277).jpg|thumb|Postcard of Sour Lake Spring Hotel, undated]]
<gallery widths="180px" heights="120px" class="center" >
Image:Derricks at Sour Lake Texas.jpg|Oil derricks at Sour Lake, {{circa|1910}}
File:Sour Lake oil leases.jpg|Sour Lake oil leases
</gallery>
Sour Lake was first settled around 1835 when the Mexican state of [[Coahuila y Tejas]] granted Stephen Jackson one [[league (unit)|league]] of land covering {{convert|4428|acre|km2}} by land grant.<ref name=Handbook/> [[Sam Houston]] visited Sour Lake in his later years.<ref name=Handbook/> The town is home to one of the biggest [[sinkhole]]s in Texas.{{Citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Sour Lake became a short-lived boomtown with the discovery of oil in 1901, shortly after oil was found at the nearby [[Spindletop]] [[salt dome]].<ref name=Handbook/> It is known as the birthplace of [[Texaco]].<ref name=Handbook/> 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]]. The Sour Lake oilfield produced about {{convert|90000000|oilbbl}} of oil up to 1948, when it was producing about {{convert|3500|oilbbl}} daily and new drilling was still underway.<ref name=Handbook/> 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''."<ref name="San Antonio Express-News">{{Cite web|url=http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/books/article/Blood-gushes-in-the-oil-fields-3337281.php#ixzz1z79pR3Sd|title = Blood gushes in the oil fields|date = 16 February 2012}}</ref>

The [[Ecuador]]ian jungle town commonly referred to as [[Lago Agrio]] was named after Sour Lake by Texaco when the company established the oil-producing settlement. ''Lago Agrio'' is [[Spanish language|Spanish]] for "Sour Lake". The official name of the Ecuadorian town is [[Nueva Loja]].