Fort Gaines Historic District

Fort Gaines is a small river town in Clay County, Georgia, whose historic core sits on a bluff above the Chattahoochee River. It began in 1816 as a wooden militia fort built to defend land acquired from the Creek Indians. A village followed, the gridiron street plan was laid out by 1827, and the town was incorporated in 1830. Steamboat traffic and a rail spur made it a regional cotton-shipping and commercial center, and in 1854 it became the county seat. The district covers about 300 acres of brick commercial buildings from the 1880s to the early 1900s, wood-frame and brick houses in styles from Greek Revival to Neoclassical, churches, a landscaped cemetery, the 1871-72 courthouse, reconstructed fort buildings and two Civil War gun emplacements. Commercial growth ended after the 1920s collapse of the cotton market. The district was recognized as an intact example of a frontier town shaped by military, political and commercial purposes.