Fort Deposit: Jackson's Supply Base

Fort Deposit takes its name directly from a military supply fort built here in October eighteen thirteen. General Ferdinand Claiborne, operating under Andrew Jackson's command during the Creek War, chose this bluff along the Old Federal Road to stockpile ammunition, artillery, provisions, and hospital supplies. The fortified camp held as many as twelve hundred men and served as the staging point before Claiborne's forces struck the Red Stick Creeks at the Battle of Holy Ground in December of that year.

Alabama would not become a state for six more years; this was still the Mississippi Territory. The town that grew around the old fort site kept its military name, a reminder that the roads, the settlements, and the state itself were shaped by that violent winter campaign.