Fort Henderson

Constructed in the spring of 1864 and renamed for a local surveyor in the 1890s, Fort Henderson stood outside Athens, Alabama, and supported Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's operations during the Atlanta Campaign. Occupied by both the Union and Confederate forces at different times, the fort was officially abandoned in 1865. After the war, Trinity School, the only institution in Limestone County, Alabama, that offered education to African Americans, was built on site of the former fort and operated there until the 1970s. In the spring of 2019, the American Battlefield Trust, in partnership with the Limestone County Archives and local historians, undertook an effort to interpret the Fort Henderson site. Spearheaded by the funding of Alabama native and Alumni Board member Paul Bryant, Jr., six new interpretive signs were installed at the site in August 2020.

Learn more about the site and how it's transformed over the years here.