Fort King George State Historic Site
One of the most visited historical locations in McIntosh County is Fort King George, the oldest English fort on Georgia’s coast. From 1721 to 1736, Fort King George was North America’s southern British Empire station. In 1721, Colonel John “Tuscarora Jack” Barnwell built a cypress blockhouse, barracks, and palisaded earthen fort. His Majesty’s Independent Company garrisoned the fort for the next seven years.
General James Oglethorpe was brought to the site in 1736 after the fort was abandoned. The village, Darien, became a primary lumber export center until 1925. Using old documents and photos, this Altamaha River frontier fortification was restored for public tours.
A museum and film covered the Guale Indians, the Santo Domingo de Talaje mission, Fort King George, Darien’s Scots, and 19th-century sawmilling when Darien became a major seaport. Besides various fort walls, remnants of three sawmills and tabby ruins are still visible. It’s on the Colonial Coast Birding Course.
Fort King George State Historic Site is a fort in Georgia’s U.S. state in McIntosh County, surrounding Darien. The fort was founded along the Darien River in 1721 and served as the British Empire’s southernmost outpost in the Americas until 1727.
It was part of a defensive line to promote settlement along the nest’s southern boundary from the Savannah River to the Altamaha River. Terrific Britain, France, and Spain contended to control the American Southeast, particularly the Savannah-Altamaha area. Fort King George was a hardship for named soldiers.
Colonel Barnwell and many of the soldiers died, mainly from camp diseases like dysentery and malaria due to bad sanitation (none of the fight). Senior British Regulars, one hundred in all, sent the soldiers out from Great Britain. Their misery was exacerbated by their own poor health and insufficient arrangements due to bad funding.
The fort was a plan for General James Oglethorpe when he set up Georgia’s southern defensive system and settled along the Altamaha River. In 1736, Oglethorpe brought Scottish colonists to settle abandoned Fort King George’s website. They named New Inverness, later called Darien.
Oglethorpe borrowed extensively from earlier ideas when South Carolina imperialists like John Barnwell, Joseph Bowdler, and Francis Nicholson designed Fort King George as part of a defensive scheme. Operated by Georgia State, the fort was actually restored and is listed on the National Historic Place Register.
Structures consist of a blockhouse, quarters of soldiers, barracks, guardhouse, baking and brewing house, blacksmith shop, moat, and palisades. The park’s museum focuses on the area’s 18th-century cultural past, consisting of the Guale, the 17th-century Spanish mission Santo Domingo de Talaje, the fort, and Scottish colonists. A display demonstrates the site’s 19th-century sawmilling and the remains of two sawmills and ruins.
Directions:
- Take Fort King George Dr to US-17 S/N Walton St in Darien
- Turn left onto US-17 S/N Walton St
- Take Glynco Pkwy to your destination