The Confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers

This photograph was taken from the Jackson County shore of the Apalachicola River during the 1940s and provides a rare view of the original confluence of "forks" of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. Construction was just beginning on the Jim Woodruff Dam at the time.

Today, the scenery shown here is completely submerged by Lake Seminole, the huge reservoir created by the completion of the dam.

For centuries, however, the "forks" was a major landmark for both Native Americans and early European explorers and settlers. Eventually the point where the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers met came to be accepted as the official dividing line between Georgia and Florida. The Spanish maintained a mission, La Encarnacion a la Santa Cruz de Sabacola on the point of land visible near the center of the photograph between the two rivers during the late 1600s. Later this was the site of the large fort and town of the Native American leader Chislacasliche ("Cherokee Killer").

The right bank of the river, visible here, was the site of a fort constructed in 1814 by British troops during the closing months of the War of 1812. The fort was an outpost of the better known British fort at Prospect Bluff that later became known as the "Negro Fort" of the Apalachicola River.