Grand 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. 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 southeast. Only a few 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. The community named Jordan's Saline quickly became the center of Van Zandt County and was, for a while the county seat.