Ruddell's Fort, located on the South Fork of the Licking River near present-day Cynthiana, began as a small pioneer settlement founded by John Hinkston in 1775 and was reinforced the following year by Simon Kenton and other frontiersmen. After an initial abandonment, Isaac Ruddell occupied and rebuilt the stockade in 1779, and it became known as Ruddell's Station. Like other Kentucky frontier forts of the period, its everyday function was as a fortified agricultural settlement and refuge: families lived in cabins built along or near the stockade walls, farmed the surrounding bottomland, and relied on the fort for collective protection during a period of sustained conflict with Native American nations allied with the British. The station sat along a trail connecting Georgetown and the Lower Blue Licks, making it a waypoint for travelers and settlers moving through the region. Its use as a functioning settlement was cut short in June 1780, when a large force of British soldiers and Native American allies, backed by artillery, surrounded and captured the fort, and the surviving residents were marched north as prisoners to Detroit. Following their eventual release after the Revolutionary War, members of the Ruddell family returned to the area and resettled near the original site, which developed into the community of Ruddell's Mills. Today the original fort site is preserved primarily as a historical and archaeological location, marked for its significance as one of the frontier stations that anchored early Kentucky settlement before its destruction.