Sour Lake is a city in Hardin County, Texas, United States.

[citation needed] Sour Lake was first settled around 1835 when the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas granted Stephen Jackson one league of land covering 4,428 acres (17.92 km2) by land grant.

[5] Today the Sour Lake oilfield is the oldest continuously producing oil field in the world.

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.

"[6] The Ecuadorian jungle town commonly referred to as Lago Agrio was named after Sour Lake by Texaco when the company established the oil-producing settlement.

Sour Lake is in southern Hardin County at the intersection of state highways 105 and 326.

[4] As of the 2020 United States census, there were 1,773 people, 820 households, and 620 families residing in the city.