Juan Cordona Lake is a natural salt deposit that has been known and used for the past 300 years. It stood on land granted by Mexico to Juan Cordova, and its present name became attached to the lake after his name was misread on maps. Explorers encountered Apaches here in 1683. From the days of early settlers, Mexicans and Anglo-Texans relied on this salt deposit. During the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, a seven-family San Saba wagon train traded watermelons and other goods to Indians here for sorely needed salt. From 1912 to 1914, a thirty-six-burro train hauled salt from here, and as recently as 1930 commercial shipments went out to Midland and Odessa.