Fort Watauga

Fort Watauga, more properly Fort Caswell, was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. The fort was originally built in 1775–1776 by the area's frontier government, the Watauga Association, to help defend Watauga settlers from Native American (primarily Cherokee) attacks, which were in part instigated by the British. Fort Watauga was originally named Fort Caswell after North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell.

In the 1970s, as part of the nation's bicentennial celebrations, the state of Tennessee authorized a reconstruction of Fort Watauga. Archaeologists conducted excavations in the Sycamore Shoals area and uncovered several trenches believed to have been part of the fort's walls. The fort was then rebuilt based on information gained about the fort's design from the excavation, descriptions of the fort in historical sources, and the general design of typical Appalachian frontier forts. The reconstructed fort is now part of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park.

In the late 1760s, Euro-American settlers began arriving in the Holston, Watauga, and Nolichucky river valleys in Southwest Virginia and what is now Northeast Tennessee. Along the Watauga, settlers were drawn to a place known as the Watauga Old Fields, an ancient Native American gathering place that pre-dated the Cherokee. The Old Fields consisted of flat, cleared land located along the Watauga's Sycamore Shoals, a relatively low stretch of the river where pioneers and travelers could cross with ease. These early settlers inevitably came into conflict with the Cherokee and other Native American tribes in the region who claimed these lands as hunting grounds.

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