Fort Hawkins Unearthing New Discoveries

Take a drive down Emery Highway in East Macon, look at the top of the hill at Fort Hawkins, and you’ll see earth-moving equipment rumbling around.

The machines are clearing away soil, digging out the line where the wall stood that once protected the original fort.

Archaeologists are working this week before the site will be open to the public, and making discoveries previously unknown about the fort.

“We have descriptions of the fort, but they’re incorrect,” LAMAR Institute President Dan Elliott explains. “Our stuff is true facts of what’s actually out here. It varies a little bit from the historical records of what people said was here.”

Fort Hawkins Commissioner Marty Willett says, once the entire trench where the wall stood is excavated, they plan to re-build the fence line with replica style 10 foot timbers.

The dig is closed to the public for the week, but the fort will be open on Saturday and Sunday as it always is.

Beginning Monday October 10th, the site will be open for the public to come in and watch the archaeologists dig.