Fort Assumption

Fort Assumption, also known as Fort De L'Assomption, was a French fortress built in 1739 on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff above the Mississippi River, in what is now downtown Memphis. It served Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, as a base for a failed campaign to drive out the native Chickasaw and open the area to French settlers. The complex consisted of three land bastions and two river bastions, while seven broad terraces protected the slope leading down to the river. The fort was named on August 15, 1739, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, after its completion. Despite its strategically favorable position on high ground, the garrisons suffered badly from weather, disease, and desertion during the winter of 1739-40. After French hostages were released in March 1740, the exhausted garrison was withdrawn and the fort was abandoned. Although the French presence there lasted only a few months, the site marks the first documented European presence in what is now Memphis, as well as the first European structure in Shelby County. The name of the former fort lives on in the surrounding French Fort Neighborhood.