Grand Saline, Texas

Grand Saline is a city in Van Zandt County, Texas, United States, located in East Texas. The population is 3,266. Grand Saline is the third largest city in Van Zandt County and is located roughly 75 miles (120 km) east of Dallas and 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Tyler, the two nearest metropolitan areas, and is part of the greater Tyler/Longview area.The town derives its name from the large salt deposits located southeast of the city, the majority of which is owned by Morton Salt.HistoryGrand Saline's first settlers were the ancient Caddo Indians and Cherokee Indians tribes who discovered and made use of a large salt prairie south of the town's present day location. The Native Americans used evaporated salt from the brine stream that flows over the flats as a commodity they traded for other needed goods. By the mid-nineteenth century, the tribes had been forced out of the area by Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas and by general anti-Indian sentiment and moved further southeast. Only a few short years after the Indians left the salt prairie behind, a new group of settlers arrived. A settler named John Jordan and other settlers brought their families and set up a primitive salt works. Just as the Caddo and Cherokee had done before, they used the brine stream they could see to boil and evaporate the water and harvest the salt left behind. The first community named Jordan’s Saline quickly became the center of Van Zandt County and was, for a while the county seat.