Fort Gardiner stood south of this site on the banks of the Kissimmee River. A Second Seminole army post, it was named for Captain George Washington Gardiner, who died in the Dade Massacre in 1835. Colonel Zachary Taylor established it on December 2, 1837, during his march to the Battle of Okeechobee. Designated headquarters of the First Brigade, Army South of the Withlacoochee, it served as a supply depot and was used in 1838 by the Fourth and Sixth Infantry Regiments. After the Battle of Okeechobee, the wounded were brought to the depot and sent on to Tampa on January 1, 1838.