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Photo courtesy of the Florida Photo Archives.
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Late in 1837 the U.S. Army assigned Lt. Colonel Benjamin K. Pierce to his third tour of duty in Florida. In search of sites for depots, Pierce and his troops arrived at the Indian River Inlet on December 31. On January 2 they erected a blockhouse of palmetto logs on a bluff that showed evidence of some fortification built many years before. This was later discovered to have been a Spanish fort built almost 100 years earlier. When General Jesup, commander of the war effort in Florida, moved in with his staff on January 15, Fort Pierce became "Headquarters, Army of the South." The troops ate so well on the area's plentiful game, fish, and oysters that soldiers complained their uniforms had become too tight. The fort burned down in 1842 but the area around the Indian River Inlet has been known as Fort Pierce ever since. The fort itself occupied an area about the size of a modern city block, located about one mile south of the St. Lucie County Courthouse on South Indian River Drive.
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