Fort Swatara

Fort Swatara was a wooden-walled defensive post featuring a blockhouse and powder storage building positioned in a strategic river valley. The fortification sat between two mountains near Swatara Creek in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania militia built this fortification in 1756 to protect settlers from attacks during the French and Indian War. It formed part of a larger network of defensive posts that stretched across the colonial region.

The name Swatara comes from the Susquehannock people and reflects their practice of building eel traps along local waterways. This connection to regional water use remains visible in how the site sits near the creek today.

The site is marked by two commemorative boulders with copper plaques that were installed in 1932 by the Lebanon County Historical Society. Visitors can see the actual valley and creek where the fort once stood, making the landscape itself part of the experience.

The fort functioned as part of a defensive network that included nearby Fort Manada and scattered fortified homesteads across the region. This distributed defense strategy reflected the spread-out nature of colonial settlement in the area.

GPS coordinates: 40.56667,-76.68361

Latest update: December 14, 2025 18:01