Fort Grigsby

[joe817]

FORT GRIGSBY. Fort Grigsby was on the Neches River at the site of present Port Neches, eleven miles southeast of Beaumont in eastern Jefferson County. It was called Grigsby's Bluff, when Maj. Julius Kellersberg built a small defensive installation in October 1862 on the bluff of that name. Fort Grigsby was part of a series of river defenses designed to block a possible Union advance up the Neches after the fall of Fort Sabine.

The fort's two twenty-four-pound guns overlooked a bend in the river. Kellersberg confidently predicted that the battery would "blow anything out of the water" that crossed the bar he had made by sinking shell-laden ships downstream in the Sabine River.

The fort itself consisted of mud and clamshell embankments reinforced by upright, pointed logs. It was occupied by Capt. K. D. Keith's company from October to December 1862 and was no longer necessary after the construction of Fort Manhassett. Fort Grigsby seems to have been abandoned sometime after July 1863.