Oconee Station was a late-1700s frontier outpost and meeting place between European Americans and Cherokees in this region. The first building, known as Oconee Station, was built as a garrisoned fort with a military blockhouse to protect white settlers from Indian attack, and it soon also served as a trading post. Beginning in 1792, it was one of seven military outposts that formed the westernmost defensive points for new settlers in South Carolina, with scouts ranging the frontier and warning local white settlers of imminent Indian attacks. It was the only station on the South Carolina frontier that remained in operation after 1796, and its military use ended after 1799 when the threat of a major Indian attack became highly unlikely. The sturdy stone structure housed as many as 30 soldiers at a time over about eight years. Trader William Richards came to live on the property in 1795 and built a brick residence next to the station building in 1805. Trade there centered especially on deerskins, which were in high demand in Europe and were exchanged by Southwestern Indians for weapons, cotton and linen fabrics, rum, ornaments, metal tools, and other goods; although beneficial to both sides, this trade disrupted traditional Native American life. The exchange of goods also blended material cultures, as many Southeastern Indians wore mixtures of European and traditional clothing and white Americans on the frontier likewise adopted apparel combining European construction with Native American materials and decoration. Oconee Station's history as a fort and trading post reflects the complex, changing relationships between Southeastern Indians and white settlers as white settlement advanced, land passed from Native peoples, and Indian Territory was pushed westward. In May 1775, British naturalist William Bartram crossed the Savannah River from Georgia and explored the Keowee River Valley in what is now Oconee and Pickens Counties, then Cherokee land, and his writings praised the area's beauty and plants; two years later, most of that land would be lost to the Cherokee.