NBC News: Fort built by gold-hunting Spanish conquistadors discovered in N.C.

Before there was Jamestown and even before there was Roanoke, there was Spain's Fort San Juan, in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of the fort built by gold-hunting Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and say it's the oldest European garrison ever found in the interior of the United States.

The settlement around Fort San Juan was occupied for less than two years and it met a rather bloody end — likely brought on by the Spaniards' botched bartering for food and their sexual transgressions with Native American women. But the short-lived fort's traces serve as a reminder of how different U.S. history might have been if Spain had been more successful in its early colonial campaigns.

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