Fort Heilman, named after Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Julius F. Heilman, was built in the mid 1830s at the spot where the north and south forks of Black Creek join. It was a temporary wooden stockade used during the First Seminole War as a quartermaster workshop and storage depot. Clustered around the stockade were the log huts of the small village of Garey's Ferry. When the Indian wars ended the fort was abandoned.