In 1838, the United States government deported more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, under the 1830 Indian Removal Act, and thousands perished in the forced relocation known as the Trail of Tears. The Old Army Road, whose bed lies alongside Tatham Gap Road, was the first wagon route into Cheoah Valley. North Carolina troops built it in May 1838 to connect the Cheoah Valley and the future Fort Montgomery, now Robbinsville, North Carolina, with the State Road at Valleytown, now Andrews, in preparation for the forced removal of Cherokee citizens. The road followed an ancient Cherokee trail through the Long Creek Valley in Graham County, across Snowbird Mountain, and down Pile Ridge in Cherokee County. Troops at Fort Montgomery began gathering Cherokee prisoners from the surrounding Cheoah, Tallula, Connichiloe, and Buffalo Town communities on June 12, 1838. Two weeks later, the militia escorted more than 300 Cherokee detainees from Fort Montgomery along the 11-mile Army Road to Fort Delaney, now Andrews, North Carolina. From there, they followed the State Road to Fort Butler, now Murphy, North Carolina, and then marched them to internment camps at Fort Cass, now Charleston, Tennessee, where they joined thousands of other Cherokee prisoners awaiting deportation to Oklahoma. In crossing Snowbird Mountain along the Old Army Road, the Cherokee prisoners climbed the highest point along the entire Trail of Tears before the 900-mile exodus ahead.