Port Royal was one of the earliest towns in Tennessee, beginning as a settlers fort around 1785 and founded as a town in 1797, one year after Tennessee became a state. It became a center of regional commerce and remained important until the American Civil War. In 1799 it was established as a tobacco inspection point, and in 1802 a post office opened there, the only one in the area for several years. Flatboats were built there annually to ship tobacco to New Orleans and other ports. Port Royal’s commerce grew from a major stagecoach route crossing the Red River there, while Sulphur Fork joined the Red River at the town, making it a commercial center for much of northern middle Tennessee and south-central Kentucky. The town plat laid out in 1797 included 36 half-acre lots, and the road that would become the stagecoach route was called Spring Alley. The stagecoach route, called the Great Western Road, came through Port Royal in the early 19th century and by the 1840s was the main route west out of Nashville, supporting many inns and hotels. After the Civil War, people left small towns like Port Royal for jobs in larger cities, and as steamboats replaced flatboats and railroads reached surrounding communities, the town faded away. A Masonic lodge and general store built in 1858 still stands as the park headquarters and is the town’s only remaining building.