General Evan Shelby erected a fort here in 1771 that sheltered and protected pioneers and sent victorious forces to the battles of Point Pleasant, Long Island Flats, and Chicamauga Towns. Here Shelby, Campbell, and Sevier conceived an expedition to Kings Mountain where the entire British force was killed or captured on Oct. 7, 1780. Thomas Jefferson remembered the victory as making a deep and grateful impression on everyone and as the joyful annunciation of the turn in the tide of success that terminated the Revolutionary War with a seal of independence.