In the 1800s, a busy village stood on Cockspur Island where a wooded area now lies near the mouth of the Savannah River. From before the Revolutionary War until after World War II, the island served as a strategic military outpost. Tides once regularly covered the island, and armies cleared away vegetation and built a drainage system to keep the land dry. After the military abandoned the fort in the late 1870s and left it in the care of the Cockspur Island lighthouse keepers, plants and animals reclaimed parts of the island.