Fort Van Meter, a small rectangular stone building erected around 1754 for the protection of white settlers against hostile Indians of the Delaware and Shawnee tribes, is still standing and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) since 2009.

)[3] About 10 years prior to the fort's construction, the area approximately 8 miles upstream (the southern end of "The Trough") known as "Indian Old Fields" had been settled by Isaac Van Meter (ca.

By about 1754, two years before the open outbreak of hostilities known as the French and Indian War, the family felt it necessary to build the stronger structure downstream at what came to be called Fort Van Meter.

[7] Fort Van Meter was relatively small among these and was never garrisoned by Colonel George Washington's Virginia Regiment as there would have been no barracks to accommodate troops.

Fort Van Meter may have been built by a skilled local mason named Nathaniel Kuykendall and his son Isaac, who are known to have been active in the South Branch River valley at the time.