By FloNight (Sydney Poore) and Russell Poore - self-made by Russell and Sydney Poore, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2806881
In June 1774 James Harrod led thirty-seven men from the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers to the mouth of the Kentucky River and from there to the Salt River. Stopping when they came across a large spring, the party quickly built rough log cabins. They stayed for almost a month before a Shawnee ambush forced a retreat to Virginia. Harrod and his men returned in May 1775, after Lord Dunmore forged the Treaty of Camp Charlotte with the Mingo and the Shawnee, and established a palisade or stockade fort with log cabins for families. This was the first permanent settlement west of the Alleghenies in what would become the state of Kentucky.
The current Old Fort Harrod State Park is a reproduction of the original fort. The layout of buildings remains the same, but it is on a different location. The original fort lies under the current parking lot.
Sources: Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, Wikipedia
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One of the oldest roads in the state, Fort Road was originally built by the federal government after Fort Ridgely was completed in 1853-54. Supplies were shipped from Fort Snelling to Traverse des Sioux, then transported by wagon to Fort Ridgely.
Nicollet County Road 5 runs more than 42 miles from its eastern terminus at its intersection with US Highway 169 in St Peter to the Renville County line. Old Fort Road presumably extended from Traverse des Sioux, although the portion running through the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College has been blocked off. Fort Road as an address runs from the western edge of St Peter to the end of CR-5.
In an ideal world, a paved trail would have been installed when the road was refurbished in the early 2010s. This planned geocache trail will have to suffice, but won’t alleviate my anxiety when biking here.