Fort Jesup State Historic Site depicts a pivotal era of U.S. military history from the 1820s to the 1840s, a time when a young nation struggled to define itself amid the growing pains of territorial expansion and frontier hardships. When the Louisiana Purchase treaty of 1803 failed to clarify the western boundary of Louisiana, a dispute erupted between the United States, which claimed eastern Texas, and Spain, which claimed western Louisiana. This conflict gave rise to the “Neutral Ground,” a strip of disputed territory where the laws of neither nation were enforced. Rogues and outlaws ruled the region for nearly twenty years, until the U.S. and Spain were finally able to resolve the dispute in 1819 by establishing the boundary at the Sabine River. The United States government built Fort Jesup in 1822 to guard what was then the westernmost boundary of the nation. Fort Jesup remained an important military outpost for nearly 25 years. Established and commanded by Zachary Taylor, who later became President of the United States, Fort Jesup was named in honor of Taylor’s friend Brigadier General Thomas Sidney Jesup. Taylor and his soldiers established law and order on the former Neutral Strip and opened the way for frontier settlers by building roads, surveying land, and negotiating treaties. The soldiers of Fort Jesup were also called upon to put down potential slave insurrections in Alexandria and Natchitoches. At its peak, the fort had 82 structures that accommodated nearly 150 officers and men. The garrison at Fort Jesup emerged as a stopping place for the thousands of American settlers who migrated through the area en route to Texas. After Mexico attained independence from Spain, American settlers in Texas grew unhappy with new restrictions imposed by the new Mexican government and proclaimed their independence. Following the U.S. annexation of Texas, border disputes between Mexico and the United States eventually erupted into the Mexican War in 1845. Fort Jesup became an important staging ground for the Mexican War as a third of the U.S. army moved through the area. The U.S. military victory and annexation of Mexican territory rendered Fort Jesup obsolete as a border outpost. Consequently, it was abandoned in 1846. After a brief period in which the former fort site was used as a Masonic park in the 1870s, the area was opened as a parish park in the 1930s. In the early 1950s, the Fort Jesup chapter of the DAR organized an effort to preserve the site as a public park. Their efforts paid off in 1957, when Fort Jesup was designated a state historic site. Four years later, Fort Jesup joined a select group of sites by being named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of Interior. Today, Fort Jesup is a 22-acre site that provides a unique glimpse of life when Louisiana was still part of the nation’s frontier. The only remaining historic structure is the kitchen, which has been furnished, as it would have been in the 1840s. The site’s primary interpretive area is the reconstructed officers’ quarters, which houses exhibits, a gift shop, and visitor services. The rest of the site has been preserved for current and future archaeological studies.