Sour Lake Drew Health Seekers Before It Drew Oil Drillers

Sour Lake's name came from mineral springs that fed the nearby lake. Pitch showed around oil seeps near the shore. Indigenous people used both the mineral water and the pitch long before White settlement, and Sour Lake had become a health resort with lodging by 1850.

Early business owners bottled and sold the water. Sam Houston visited in the early 1860s. Bazile, a formerly enslaved healer, became known as Dr. Mud for his treatments. By 1885, Sour Lake had two general stores, two hotels, and about 150 residents.

Oil discoveries in July 1902 changed the scale overnight. The population sometimes reached 10,000, peak production hit 50,000 barrels a day, and as many as fifty-two saloons operated at once. The Texas Company, later known as Texaco, also began at Sour Lake in 1902. Beneath the oil history, the town's name still points back to water, pitch, and a lake people visited for relief.