European settlers were drawn to the area as early as the 1740s because of the Shallow Ford, a natural gravel roadway under the Yadkin River.

[2] When a road was extended from the Moravian settlement of Bethabara to the Shallow Ford in 1753, the village just west of the river became a frequent stop on the stagecoach trail.

In 1770, the Shallow Ford became part of the western expansion as well, when the Mulberry Fields Road, and what later became known as the Daniel Boone Trail to Kentucky, opened.

[citation needed] The Battle of Shallow Ford was fought on October 14, 1780, between about 300 Tories and 350 Patriots from North Carolina and Virginia.

The Tories, led by Col. Gideon Wright were moving on horseback into the mountains north of the Yadkin River to hideout.

[3] The Patriot force under Maj. Joseph Cloyd of Virginia waited in ambush near the intersection of Battle Branch and Mulberry Fields Road.

[4] A Black man named Ball Turner, had lodged himself on the Patriot flank and continued firing well after the rest of the Tories had fled.

On the night of January 7, 1781, Lord Charles Cornwallis led his army of 2800 British and Provincial Soldiers across the Yadkin River at the Shallow Ford.

Peter Eaton, who represented the area in the North Carolina Senate, petitioned to change the town's name to Eatonsville in 1807.

Stoneman's men looted and burned much of the village, including the Red Store, before heading south toward Mocksville and Salisbury.