🏰 Fort Ouiatenon

Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles southwest of modern-day West Lafayette. The name 'Ouiatenon' is a French rendering of the name in the Wea language, waayaahtanonki, meaning 'place of the whirlpool'. It was one of three French forts built during the 18th century in what was then New France, later the Northwest Territory and today the state of Indiana, the other two being Fort Miami and Fort Vincennes. A substantial French settlement grew up around the fort in the mid-18th century. It was ceded to the British and abandoned after the French and Indian War. Later, it passed into Indian hands and was destroyed in 1791 by American militia during the Northwest Indian War. Consequently, Fort Ouiatenon was never a United States fort. The original site was rediscovered in the 1960s; the archaeological site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021.