First white settlers arrived in 1784, and Fort Clark was built in 1793 as a fortified house with a stockade by Michael Cupp for $45.00 and garrisoned by Greene County militia led by Cornett Peyton Smith. A covered toll bridge was first built in 1809, Georgia's first paper mill began operating in 1810, and the mills became a village community with a superintendent's house, manager's house, company store and warehouse, blacksmith shop, power plant, raceway bridge, and mill houses. A fire destroyed the mills in 1845, but they were rebuilt, and in 1846 a power plant with a horizontal turbine used water from the Oconee River carried by the raceway from the dam to power all the mills. The whole mill complex was rebuilt in brick after the fire, and in 1847 the rebuilding was completed. The place suffered no damage during the Civil War. Floods repeatedly struck the community, destroying the covered bridge in 1841 and again in 1887, covering the town in the 1887 flood, and leaving the company store under water for four days and destroying 600 bushels of wheat. The mills were sold in 1897 and the town was abandoned, though some buildings remained into the twentieth century: the superintendent's house, damaged in a 1908 flood, stood until the 1930s, the manager's house remained occupied until it was removed in 1935, and that same year the U.S. Government bought the land. Later evidence identified the long-unknown site of Fort Clark in 1999, when archaeologists found remains of a large post with pottery dated from 1780-1820. The village was also associated with Dr. Lindsey Durham, whose medical family maintained a large hospital and developed patent medicines from a 13 acre herb garden across the Oconee River, and Dr. Thomas N. Poullain, who owned and operated Scull Shoals Mills from 1827 to 1868.