Sabine Lake is a bay on the Gulf coasts of Texas and Louisiana, located approximately east of Houston and west of Baton Rouge, adjoining the city of Port Arthur. The lake is formed by the confluence of the Neches and Sabine Rivers and connects to the Gulf of Mexico through Sabine Pass. It forms part of the Texas–Louisiana border, falling within Jefferson and Orange Counties in Texas and Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
Sabine Lake is one of seven major estuaries along the Gulf Coast of Texas. Much of the Louisiana shore is protected by the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. There is a long history of human habitation around the lake, including Native American settlement dating back at least 1,500 years, European exploration in the eighteenth century, and the growth of Port Arthur in the twentieth century. Today the lake serves as part of the Sabine–Neches Waterway and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and is a center for the shipping and petrochemical industries.
History
Archaeological evidence indicates that Native American groups from the Marksville culture were present near the shores of Sabine Lake by . Burial mounds that may have belonged to the Karankawa have been uncovered near the north shore at what is now Port Neches, but by the time of European arrival in the eighteenth century the region was inhabited by the Atakapa. English explorers led by George Gauld mapped the lake in 1777; Spanish explorers under Antonio Gil Y'Barbo visited the lake the same year, and an expedition under José Antonio de Evia mapped the lake in 1785 as part of a survey of the Texas coast. In the early 1800s Sabine Lake was used to ship slaves and other contraband into the region by smugglers including the pirate Jean Lafitte. The waterway was also used to move timber and cotton out from the interior.
With the 1801 Treaty of Aranjuez the lake became part of the border between French Louisiana and Spanish Texas. The discovery of petroleum under Spindletop in 1901 began the Texas oil boom and caused rapid economic growth in nearby Beaumont, prompting interest in expanding the region's canal system. By 1908 Sabine Lake's channel was extended northward to the mouths of the Neches and Sabine Rivers to improve shipping access to the ports of Beaumont and Orange, forming the Sabine–Neches Canal; The material dredged up in the canalization was formed into Pleasure Island, an artificial barrier island along the majority of the western shore that shelters Port Arthur and the waterway. Most of the Louisiana shore was protected within the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge in 1937. In the early twentieth century the lake and its shipping channel were incorporated into a wider network of canals running from New Orleans to Galveston Bay; after World War II this network grew into the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The eastern (Louisiana) shore has little human development, and the majority is protected within the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge; The Martin Luther King Bridge (also known as the Gulfgate Bridge) spans the Sabine–Neches Canal to link Port Arthur to Pleasure Island, and the Sabine Causeway connects the island to the Louisiana shore across the southern tip of the lake. Water exchange with the Gulf of Mexico occurs at Sabine Pass.
Sabine Lake is the smallest of the seven major estuaries along the Gulf Coast of Texas, approximately long and wide, with a surface area of . It receives the discharge from the Neches and Sabine Rivers, along with various smaller streams and the surrounding coastal watershed. The lake's small size and high rate of freshwater inflow make it the least saline of the major Texas estuaries. Its salinity was even lower prior to the twentieth century, and its upper reaches were almost entirely fresh, but the extensive channelization of the lake since then has led to increased saltwater intrusion into the estuary, with salinity rising especially during periods of low freshwater inflow.
Industry
thumb|alt=Oil refinery buildings along a waterway at night|[[Petrochemical industry along the Texas shore of Sabine Lake]]
The channelization of Sabine Lake has made it an important industrial waterway, one component of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the heart of the Sabine–Neches Waterway. The three ports it links to the Gulf of Mexico (Port Arthur, Beaumont and Orange) form a major nexus for the shipping and petrochemical industries, the so-called Golden Triangle of Texas. The largest industries around the lake are petroleum and natural gas extraction, petrochemical processing, shipping, and shipbuilding. Agriculture also forms a significant component of the regional economy, principally rice and soybean cultivation, livestock ranching, and commercial fishing.