During the Dakota Incident in 1862, danger threatened the Forest City area, and twelve men from the Fair Haven area, including settlers, scouts, and men from Company I, 8th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry under Captain Adkins, marched away to give aid. Their departure left local families poorly protected, so those who remained built a stockade around the old log hotel, the only building large enough to hold the group. Women and children stayed inside this protection for three weeks, while the men worked their fields by day and spent their nights in the stockade. The fortified structure stood on the northwest corner of the second city block in Fair Haven. In 1863, after the McGannon Incident near Fair Haven and the attack on the Block farm in Fair Haven township, state scouts quartered in the village made residents feel much safer. Although the fort was never attacked, it provided peace of mind to settlers during a stressful time.