Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, seeking to create a strategic outpost for New France, built Fort Toulouse in Creek territory. This area would eventually become Wetumpka, located on the banks of the Coosa River and standing at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. The fort became the headquarters for Gen. Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, and later it was where Creek Indians ceded their lands to the federal government. Wetumpka's presence was also large outside of military endeavors. During the cotton boom, two years after the city's incorporation in 1834, a New York newspaper declared it and Chicago, Illinois, the "two most promising cities in the West." Although fire, floods, and the Civil War hindered growth, infrastructural transformations and cultural additions have helped mold modern Wetumpka into the "City of Natural Beauty" and propel it to occasional roles on the big screen.