Approximately three miles west of Springfield, at the present site of George Rogers Clark Memorial Park, stood the Shawnee town of Piqua. On August 8, 1780, it was the site of the Battle of Piqua, one of the last battles of the American Revolution in the West. General George Rogers Clark and his Kentucky soldiers defeated the Shawnee Indians and drove them from the area, helping make the Northwest Territory part of the United States. The battle was significant both in the pioneers' struggle for the West and in the American colonies' struggle for ascendancy over the British during the American Revolution. Permanent settlement of the Ohio area began within a decade and a half after Clark's victory.