Fort Dearborn

Fort Dearborn was a United States fort, first built in 1803 beside the Chicago River, in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by U.S. troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secretary of War. The original fort was destroyed following the Battle of Fort Dearborn during the War of 1812, and a replacement Fort Dearborn was constructed on the same site in 1816 and decommissioned by 1837.

Parts of the fort were lost to the widening of the Chicago River in 1855, and a fire in 1857. The last vestiges of Fort Dearborn were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The site of the fort is now a Chicago Landmark, located in the Michigan–Wacker Historic District, at the southern end of the DuSable Michigan Avenue Bridge.

Text adapted from “Fort Dearborn” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fort Dearborn ranks #1,209 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #22 of the 105 mapped in United States. Founded 1803, it is older than 13% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 562 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 5,469 times in the last 60 days, more than 86% of the atlas. See how United States compares in the castle statistics.

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