Before its completion, new orders changed the location to Spavinaw Creek, nearer the Arkansas – Indian Territory border.
Specifically, it was to protect a nearby military road and relieve residents of northwestern Arkansas of fears of depredations by Cherokees living in Indian Territory.
The army abandoned the fort in 1842 due to the high incidence of malaria suffered by soldiers assigned there, and turned it over to the Cherokee Nation.
It was used thereafter by Stand Watie and his followers until the Civil War Battle of Old Fort Wayne in October, 1862.
[3] At the beginning of the Civil War, Stand Watie took over the fort site, where he organized the Cherokee Mounted Rifles.