Fort Blount

Avery's Trace crossed the Cumberland at a natural ford where sandbars let travelers wade for much of the year. A ferry opened in 1791, a blockhouse went up on the east bank the next year, and in 1794 a larger fort rose on the west bank, eventually named for territorial governor William Blount. Militia and then U.S. Army regulars held it until it closed in 1798. Excavations between 1989 and 1994 found its outline, and the site joined the National Register in 1974. Most of the surrounding peninsula is private farmland.

What the plaque says

Fort Blount 2 1/2 mi. southwest on the west bank of Cumberland River, this fort was built about 1784 to protect the settlers route between the Cumberland Settlements and the East. Williamsburg, the first county seat of Smith County, grew up nearby. The old building used as a county jail still stands.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cummins Falls State Park — 11 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Red Boiling Springs — 16 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.
• Cookeville Depot Museum — 17 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 21 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.

More markers nearby

• Sampson Williams 1762-1841 — 3.7 mi
• Granville — 4.1 mi
• Flynn Creek Impact Crater — 5.5 mi
• Orion Clemenes 1825-1897 — 5.7 mi