Cotton Gin Port, on the east bank of the Tombigbee River in northeastern Mississippi, occupied a strategic crossing where major Indian trails met and became an early gateway into the Upper Tombigbee country. Regarded as the first European-settled town in what became north Mississippi, it served colonial expeditions in 1736 and 1752, later became a U.S. cotton-gin site and Chickasaw trading post, and gained importance through Gaines Trace in 1811 and 1812. The settlement is also associated with Chickasaw chief Levi Colbert and with William Philip King, later the youngest defender to die at the Alamo. It declined after a railroad bypassed it and Amory drew away its trade.