Fort Hawkins was established in 1806 by President Thomas Jefferson and Indian Agent Col. Benjamin Hawkins as an official U.S. Army Fort and Indian Factory for tranding and meeting with the Native Americans in Middle Georgia. At the time, it was the western frontier and a wilderness. It overlooked the ancient Indian Mounds held sacred by the Muskogee Creek Nation, the "Old Fields". Other landmarks nearby included: the Ocmulgee River, the Lower Creek Trading Path (later to become the Federal Road connecting Washington D.C. to Mobile), and the future site of the city of Macon founded across the river seventeen years later.