After the blockhouse disappeared, the Fort Dobbs site became farmland, and a century of plowing gradually filled much of the fort's outer ditch and cellar. Even so, knowledge of and interest in the old fort endured. In 1847, local citizens dug to the bottom of the collapsed well shaft in search of cannons said to have been thrown there, finding no guns but making the first excavation at the site. The first scientific archaeological dig did not take place until 1967. Around the turn of the twentieth century, local women organized a chapter of the National Society Daughter of the American Revolution named for Fort Dobbs, recognized the site's importance, and bought nine acres in 1909, preserving the place through their efforts. In 1910, the NSDAR erected a granite monument, and later J. Hampton Rich of Mocksville added an iron marker as part of the Boone Trail Highway Association's program of placing identical tablets at sites visited by Daniel Boone; the Fort Dobbs marker is one of only 60 of the original 358 known to survive. In 1941, the Fort Dobbs Chapter moved several nearby nineteenth-century log structures to the site, and together these buildings formed the structure standing there today. The refurbished house served as a meeting place for nearly thirty years before the chapter transferred the site to the State of North Carolina. Fort Dobbs State Historic Site formally opened to the public in 1976.