Fort Orange

Fort Orange. Built in 1624. Mere yards ahead of you once stood Fort Orange, the first permanent Dutch settlement in North America., The Dutch West India Company built Fort Orange at the most strategic crossroads in the region , at the head of the trail into Mohawk territory and near the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers. This position made the fort the most important center of diplomacy and trade between the Dutch colonists and Native peoples in northeastern America. , In the mid and late 1600s, what would become the city of Albany grew outside the fort walls and spread mostly north and west, along what are today's Broadway and State Street. The fort was abandoned in 1676, and by that time Albany was firmly established as a busy and influential hub of social, political, and economic life in the colonies., An earlier fort, Nassau, was built in 1614, slightly south of Fort Orange, but was washed away within a few years by floods. , While Fort Nassau was short-lived, it has an important role in history. By building it six years before the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony, the Dutch signaled their claim to the region and established a presence that grew into what would become the city of Albany and New York State.