In November 1837, during the Second Seminole War, Col. Zachary Taylor, commanding the Army south of the Withlacoochee, received orders to open a road from Tampa to the headwaters of Peace Creek and eastward to the Kissimmee River. Lt. Col. William Foster was dispatched from Fort Brooke in Tampa to Lake Hancock to build a stockade and supply depot named Fort Fraser. Near the opening into Lake Hancock, a military bridge spanned Saddle Creek, and farther south on the creek’s west side stood a 300-foot raised dirt causeway. Army troops continued building bridges and causeways along military roads to reach the Seminoles near the Kissimmee River, culminating in the Battle of Okeechobee on Christmas Day 1837. A hurricane in 1848 destroyed the Saddle Creek military bridge and damaged the causeway, prompting the establishment of Fort Meade in 1849, the same year Col. Zachary Taylor became the 12th President of the United States. The military road and elevated causeway were located about 1500 feet south of the Lake Hancock water control system operated by Southwest Florida Water Management District and the wetlands mitigation site for Polk County Waste Resource Management Division.