14. Fort Place

Highway 71

Historical marker for Fort Place

This fort was constructed about 1835 by Thomas C. Richards, his son John Richards and other early settlers as a refuge from Indians. It was located very near the St. Joseph and Iola Railroad and consisted of a two-story hewn log blockhouse equipped with portholes for firearms and was enclosed within a two-acre stockade. Lora Richards Gay, the great grand daughter of Thomas C. Richards writes that “On the night of January 14, 1838, a band of hostile Indians came up the river by canoe, made a surprise attack on the fort and the battle lasted all night. Thomas C. Richards was killed in the attack.”

Fort Place was apparently abandoned shortly after the St. Joseph and Iola Railroad ceased operation in 1841. Some of the families connected with the construction of Fort Place returned three decades later to settle Wewahitchka, four miles to the north. Parts of the Old Fort Place were still standing as late as 1930.

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