After the U.S. Army built Fort Stoddert in 1799, travel in the area was limited to water routes and Indian trails, with no roads wide enough for wagons or carriages, so soldiers widened those trails into a broad road through the forest to carry food and ammunition from Natchez to the fort. They cut trees, marked the route, built bridges over large streams, and laid logs across swamps, creating an American road that ran roughly east-west for 250 miles. In 1805 Congress designated this Military Road as a post road for mail riders traveling between Fort Stoddert, Natchez, and New Orleans. No road yet linked Fort Stoddert to the eastern states because the Creek Nation lay between the Mobile-Tensaw delta and central Georgia, but an 1805 treaty allowed a horsepath for U.S. postal riders across 400 miles of Creek land, and private contractors opened the route by 1807. In 1810 the U.S. War Department ordered Lt. James Luckett and soldiers from Fort Stoddert to widen that horsepath into a wagon road, but Creek objections halted the work midway. On July 11, 1811, Brigadier General Wade Hampton was ordered to begin construction of three wagon roads through the Creek Nation, and after further negotiations with the Creeks, soldiers completed the second of these in November 1811 as the Federal Road from Fort Stoddert to Milledgeville, Georgia's state capital. Between 1811 and 1836 the Federal Road became the principal land route between the eastern states and Mobile, New Orleans, and points west, and forts, taverns, stands, post offices, and plantations grew up along it. Its construction through Creek land created deep discontent among the Creeks and contributed to the outbreak of war in 1813. After most American Indians were removed from the region in the 1830s, the Old Federal Road remained a principal route for immigrants entering Alabama and the lower South through the 1840s, and much of it stayed in use until modern highway and bridge construction left most of the original route behind in the 1930s.