Grand Saline, Texas

Everything Grand Saline is known for

3 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Grand Saline

Songs About Grand Saline

Suzannah
Shane Smith & the Saints
53%
"His daddy worked the mines and ran a lab in Grand Saline"
Mountain Girl
Shane Smith & the Saints
4%
"New York, Tulsa, to Grand Saline"
Railroadin’ Some
Henry Thomas
3%
"Hello, Terrell, Grand Saline, Silver Lake, Mineola"

Artists From Grand Saline

C
Chris Tomlin
gospel Pop: 69

Rivers & Roads in Song near Grand Saline

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Grand Saline.

Sabine River 13 songs Interstate 20 13 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs Trinity River 10 songs

Musical Heritage

Kacey Musgraves RoadyGoat

Golden, Texas — population not much — put Kacey Musgraves on a stage before the world ever heard her. As a teenager she opened for Ray Wylie Hubbard at a little East Texas venue, which is about as real a country apprenticeship as it gets. Then she went and rewrote the rulebook. "Same Trailer Different Park" won a Grammy. "Golden Hour" won more. Her 2013 single "Follow Your Arrow" was a risky, controversial pick for country radio, and she put it out anyway. She picked up GLAAD's Vanguard Award in 2022. But the name's the tell, isn't it — the record that made her a superstar was called "Golden Hour," and the town that made her is just called Golden. Some things you don't have to spell out.

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History of Grand Saline

Grand Saline, TX RoadyGoat

Grand Saline's history is deeply rooted in salt. The ancient Caddo and Cherokee tribes were the first to settle here, utilizing the large salt prairie for trade. After they were forced out in the mid-19th century, new settlers like John Jordan arrived, establishing salt works and naming the community Jordan's Saline. The Civil War and the extension of the Texas and Pacific Railroad brought further growth, leading to the incorporation of Grand Saline in 1895. The town also saw economic shifts with the discovery of the Van oil field in the late 1920s and the formation of the Grand Saline Industrial Foundation during World War II, which attracted new businesses like clothing manufacturers and meat packing companies.

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Grand Saline, TX RoadyGoat

Salt has been the signature industry of Grand Saline, with the town deriving its name from the large salt deposits in the area. Over time, numerous salt companies operated here, including the Richardson Salt works, the Lone Star Salt Company, Kleer Salt Works, and the Grand Saline Salt Company, which later became part of Morton Salt. The salt was used in tanning leather and preserving food. The discovery of the nearby Van oil field in the late 1920s also brought petroleum supply and lumber companies to the area.

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Grand Saline, TX RoadyGoat

Grand Saline was founded by settlers like John Jordan, who established a primitive salt works after the Caddo and Cherokee tribes were forced out of the area. The community named Jordan's Saline quickly became the center of Van Zandt County and was, for a while, the county seat. The city was incorporated in 1895, and the community of Jordan's Saline faded into history as its residents moved north to the bustling new city.

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Post, Wiley Hardeman

1927

Pioneer aviator Wiley Hardeman Post was born on November 22, 1898, in the community of Corinth in Van Zandt County, to William Francis and Mae Laine Post, who moved to Oklahoma when Wiley was a boy. Wiley was inspired as a youth to learn to fly. In the late 1920s he obtained flight training, made his first solo flight, and acquired an air transport license. Despite the loss of one eye in an oil field accident, Post worked as a barnstormer, commercial pilot and flight instructor. Post set many flight records and won the national air races in 1930. He and Harold Gatty circled the world, flying 15,474 miles in less than 9 days in 1931. Post soloed around the world in less than 8 days in 1933. Post invented and developed the first pressurized flight suit, explored stratospheric flight, and used an early Sperry autopilot mechanism. He worked with the U. S. Army Air Corps on an experimental automatic direction finding (ADF) radio compass, and was a pioneer in the use of liquid oxygen for high altitude flight. Post and humorist Will Rogers died in a plane crash on a trip to Alaska in 1935. His plane the "Winnie Mae" is in the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. (1996)

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Richardson, Samuel Q.

1848

Samuel Q. Richardson, Van Zandt County saltmaker and county judge, the son of S. Q. and Mary (Harrison) Richardson, was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1828. He was raised in Bourbon County, Kentucky, and Van Buren County, Iowa, after which he began farming. He moved to Texas in 1848 and settled in Rusk County, where he established a mill. He served as Rusk County deputy sheriff in 1851 and 1852, engaged in freighting in East Texas, and was briefly a clerk in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1853 he established a mill at Henderson and in 1856 a steam sawmill at Tyler. In 1859 Richardson moved to Van Zandt County, where he bought 4,000 acres of land at Saline Prairie, including the salt-manufacturing operations of Frederick J. Hamm, and engaged in saltmaking. During the Civil War Richardson enlisted in Company I of the Twenty-second Infantry, served in Louisiana and Texas, and spent some time in the North. His wife ran the saltworks in his absence, and for a time it was used by federal forces. After the war Richardson returned to Van Zandt County, where he was appointed chief justice and resumed salt production. He produced as much as 200 to 300 bags a day but in 1875 leased his salt works to a St. Louis company organized by G. M. Overlease. Richardson moved to Dallas in 1878, bought fifteen acres on the Houston and Texas Central Railroad for an ice plant, and operated it for several years. He also laid out Richardson's Addition, which became part of the city. After living for a time in Dallas, he returned to Grand Saline, where he established the first deep well to pierce the rock-salt bed and established a salt plant on the Texas and Pacific Railroad that he operated until his death. In 1892 Richardson installed steam lines to increase salt production to 600 barrels a day. His plant was across the railroad tracks from the site of the present southeast corner of Grand Saline. In 1860 Richardson married Mary J. Casen, with whom he had four children, and in 1896 he married Willie Whitworth, with whom he had one child. He died in 1900 and was buried in Dallas. After his death, the salt plant passed through several changes of management and ownership. Heirs of the estate sold their holdings in 1904 to the Grand Saline Salt Company, organized by Emerson Carey and J. Kirk, and in 1920 it became part of the Morton Salt Company.

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Salt Industry

1750

Salt is the oldest and most continuously produced commercial mineral in Texas. Long before the arrival of White men, Indians obtained salt from numerous salt lakes, salines, and salt springs and from the alkali lakes of the High Plains . As early as 1750 the Spaniards produced salt from the Salt Flat lakes in the area of Hudspeth and Culberson counties, and from about 1768 Spanish colonists in Mexico and Texas obtained salt from La Sal del Rey in present Hidalgo County and from La Sal Vieja fifteen miles east in present Willacy County; salt from these two lakes was hauled over the old "salt road" to Reynosa. Early settlers obtained salt from Juan Cordona Lake , now in Crane County; Laguna Salada, now in Brooks County; Butler Saline, now in Freestone County; from wells on Salt Creek, in present Young County; from seepages in the area of present Llano County; and from many salines in East Texas . In 1834 the Cherokee Indians made the first salt at the site of Grand Saline in present Van Zandt County, by evaporating water from salt marshes. In 1839 Gen. Nathaniel Smith from Tennessee obtained a saline near Palestine, where he made salt until his death in 1841. His estate filed a claim against the Republic of Texas in 1841 for salt used in the Trinity campaign to the value of $100, and for more than ten years his sons produced salt commercially thereafter. In 1845 John Jordan and A. T. McGee began boiling down brine in large iron kettles brought from Nacogdoches at Jordan's saline in the area of Kaufman County, and in 1849 Samuel Alexander began producing salt from a saline in Fisher County. In 1850 Frederick J. Hamm leased the salt works at Grand Saline from Jordan and McGee, and in 1857 bought the plant. The output of salt during this period was small because of the crude method of manufacture and poor transportation facilities, all salt being hauled by ox-cart or wagon to towns farther east. In 1859 Samuel Q. Richardson from Kentucky bought the Hamm salt works, dug shallow wells, and installed a pump that was operated by oxen and a treadmill; gum logs, hollowed out and joined together, formed a pipe line from the wells to the boiling kettles. During the Civil War the Confederate government operated the Richardson salt works and produced 500 pounds of salt daily. At the same time James L. McMeans, Sr., operated the Palestine salt works and sold salt to the Confederacy at the fixed price of eight dollars a sack, but customers from East Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas sometimes paid as much as $20 per hundred pounds for salt at Palestine during the war. In 1862 La Sal del Rey was taken over by the state, and in 1863 was captured by the Union Army on a special campaign. After the Civil War Richardson increased the output of the Grand Saline Salt Works to 2,500 pounds daily. In 1875 G. M. Overlease of St. Louis leased the Grand Saline plant and replaced the iron kettles with large square shallow pans, using the heat of the sun for evaporation. In a few years the first well was drilled into the large salt dome underneath the Grand Saline area, and water of high brine content was obtained. In 1877 the Salt Flat lakes of the Trans-Pecos area became the scene of the Salt War of San Elizario , which arose because individuals who filed on the land including the lakes denied local residents access to the salt. United States soldiers were sent to quell the disturbance, Fort Bliss was reestablished, and diplomatic exchanges were made between the United States and Mexico. In 1891 Maj. Byron Parsons organized the Lone Star Salt Company and installed steam pipes in the evaporating pans, which greatly increased the output. Richardson installed similar equipment, and the production of salt in Grand Saline increased to 17,000 pounds daily. In 1893 Texas produced 18,000 tons of salt, but by 1899 production had risen to 44,634 tons. Between 1901 and 1904 three new salt companies began operations at Grand Saline, and in 1914 the introduction of a new

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Grand Saline, C.S.A.

1861

The large saline deposit was a major source of salt in Texas during the Civil War. Salt was first obtained by the Indians. In 1854, works were built. Sam Richardson, the owner in 1861, went to war and left his wife to run the works until the Confederate government took over production. Because salt was considered a strategic industry, salt workers were exempt from army service for a time and many wells were sunk to obtain the more than 10,000 pounds of salt made daily for the civilians and army west of the Mississippi River. Mule-powered pumps drew the brine from the wells. Gum logs, hollowed out and pinned together formed a pipeline to huge iron evaporating kettles. Salt was then sacked, purchased and hauled away on horseback, in wagons and oxcarts. During the Civil War, the demand for salt, the only known way to preserve meat, increased to supply the Southern army. Meat was salted, smoked and then packed in salt for the long, hot trips to army camps. Horses and mules used by cavalry, artillery, and quartermaster units required the vital mineral, too. Salt also preserved hides for making shoes, harnesses and saddles. When the Confederate government levied a meat tithe on farmers, the demand for salt increased and often cattle and cotton were exchanged for salt which itself became a medium of exchange. When salt became scarce, women dug up smokehouse floors to extract salt from the soil. Other Civil War salt works were operated along the coast and in other East, Central and West Texas counties. Erected by the State of Texas 1964

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Poletown and Rhodesburg

1863

The first documented mention of a settlement at this site, just west of Jordan's Saline, comes from an 1863 letter by Alice Merrifield. The community was mostly made up of people who fled west to escape the southern battle sites of the Civil War. The small community became known as Poletown, perhaps because of the poles used for home construction, and was one of many such communities formed on unattended land while property owners were away at war. After the war, Poletown residents who were not property owners made arrangements to purchase land or become tenant farmers. A voting precinct was formed in 1873, a school had been established for local children by 1889 and land was deeded to the community for the already existing cemetery in 1900. In 1895, Tom Alexander honored populist Jacob C. Rhodes by deisgnating a section of his land at Poletown as the new town of Rhodesburg (or Rhodesburgh). The city gained national prominence when Rhodes and his followers changed allegiance to the Socialist Party. Rhodes organized the Socialist Party of Texas, and the first Socialist state convention was held later that year. For over a decade, Socialist Party encampments were held just west of Grand Saline. The Socialist Party of Texas reached its peak of popularity by the time of the 1912 presidential election, and received thirty percent support in Van Zandt County. While the National Socialist Party shifted away from tenant farmers' issues and toward labor union issues, the Texas party, including Van Zandt County, began to fracture and weaken while the Democratic Party strengthened. Soon, most of Rhodesburg's political leaders left the area, while many descendants of the earlier settlers remain. (2010)

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Things to Do in Grand Saline

food 20.5 mi away
LaCascio's Scratch Italian

Italian fine dining in tiny Lindale at 75 Miranda Lambert Way — named for the town's famous daughter. Scratch kitchen, fresh-baked bread, upscale-casual…

Everything Near Grand Saline

265 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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