Newport Barracks
Kentucky
At the mouth of the Licking River, where it joins the Ohio, stood Newport Barracks, one of the early army's key posts in the West. It was built around eighteen oh three, after General James Taylor, the founder of Newport, persuaded his cousin, future president James Madison, to plant a military post here. The location made it a vital supply and staging depot.
During the War of Eighteen Twelve it served as a prison, and Kentucky troops gathered here during the war. It trained volunteers for the Mexican War, and many well-known soldiers passed through. But its riverside site flooded again and again in the eighteen eighties, so the army moved its men to higher ground at Fort Thomas.
Newport Barracks closed in eighteen ninety-four, after nearly a century of service.
