Throughout history, salt has remained a prized resource for survival.

It was so revered that Roman soldiers were paid in salt instead of gold, a practice that created the word “salary,” said Elvis Allen, vice president of the Van Zandt Historical Commission.

Salt also was a form of currency for the Caddo Indians in the late 1700s, Allen said. They were the first to mine the large dome in Grand Saline with a technique that was similar to that of the early settlers. The Indians used water to extract the resource and cooked out the water above a fire using clay pots shaped like cake pans, Allen said.

“The Caddos were the salt makers in the nation,” he said. “When they were discovered by the Europeans, they were making salt commercially.”

The tribe used the mineral to preserve their meat and traded it with other tribes for buffalo hides, semiprecious stones, gold, silver and copper, he said.

All of East Texas and most of Louisiana sits on a tremendous salt bed that was formed during the Jurassic period more than 145 million years ago, when Earth’s land was together in a supercontinent called Pangaea, said Dr. William Godwin, curator of East Texas Natural History Collection at Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins.

Pangaea had low-lying oceans that periodically dried up and refilled in the East Texas area, Godwin said. Throughout time the continent broke away, and the beds of salt were left underground.

Godwin said the salt domes that formed are basically like pimples on the face of the Earth. The layer of salt left over from the oceans is less dense that the layers of sandstone and other rock on top, and throughout time the pressure forced the salt to become plastic-like and malleable. The density pushed the salt together and upward in a large column until it reached the surface, he said.

The city of Grand Saline was named by the Spaniards for its saline deposits, but there are other such deposits in East Texas, Allen said. Another lies under Lake Palestine, while another is near Lindale and others lay near the Sabine and Angelina rivers, Godwin said.

During the Civil War, Texas passed a law exempting salt makers from the draft, Allen said. Slaves also were rented from their owners to help with production, and after the war they were freed, Allen said. The product was shipped to help Confederate soldiers preserve meat.

Wells were hand-dug and pumped with water, Allen said. A furnace with a fire on one end heated the contraption, and varying sizes of pots, with the larger ones closer to the fire used to cook out the water.

The product was not quite like what rests on store shelves today.

“It was still wet when it was stacked up,” Allen said. “It was moist, and it was not real clean — all the impurities were still in it.”

The saline at Grand Saline was consistently mined following the Civil War, with several manufacturers leasing the land, while the state maintained the mineral rights until a law was passed allowing private mineral right ownership in 1866.

Morton’s Salt has been mining in Grand Saline since 1930 and still contributes to the local economy.

“Salt has always been important, and it’s still important to Van Zandt County,” Allen said. “It’s the third largest taxpayer in the county (and) … by the time you pay the employees paying taxes, it’s probably No. 1.”

The geological phenomenon that created the salt domes created more than a way to preserve meat and enhance trade — it also has a hand in forming oil deposits.

Godwin said as the column of salt pushed upward, it disturbed normally level layers of rock in the ground, and created pockets along the perimeter of the salt dome where oil pooled.

Layers of shale rock, which are common around the domes, also are capable of holding natural gas, he said.

So in one way or another, salt has been a rich part of East Texas history, he said.

“It’s like a friend who has been with you all along this history … ” Godwin said. “The Indians used it, in the Civil War they got it and shipped it out of Marshall to the Confederacy, to the days when they started finding oil in East Texas. … It’s like a thread running through our history.”