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About one to two miles south of the Rock Hawk site ran the
Okfuskee Trail, also known as the Upper Creek Trading
Path. The Okfuskee Trail is the predecessor of today's
Historic Piedmont Scenic Byway (Georgia Highway 16),
and the Rock Hawk area is one of the Byway's attractions.
Long before European settlement, Native American trails
criss-crossed the Southeast. When the English founded
Charles Town (present-day Charleston, SC) in the late
1600s, the Upper Creek Trading Path became an
important route in the profitable trade for deerskins.
The
settlement of Augusta on the Savannah River became an
important center in the Indian trade in the mid 1700s. The
western destination of traders on the path was Okfuskee,
on the Tallapoosa River, located in present-day eastern
central Alabama.
Okfuskee was a principal town of the Upper Creeks.
After the
Creeks were defeated in the Red Stick War of 1813-1814,
they lost more of their homeland. Okfuskee became part
of the new state of Alabama. The United States
government sent the Creeks across the Mississippi River
to live in present-day Oklahoma, and the Okfuskee Trail
passed into history. Parts of the Trail ultimately became the
paved roads of today.
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