Fouriesburg was established in 1892 when farmer Rooi Christoffel Fourie donated his land as a temporary capital during the Anglo Boer War. His farm was called Groenfontein (Green Fountain) on which the town now proudly sits. The title of "Capital of the Free State" is yet to be rescinded. 

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Rooi Christoffel donated the land for use as a temporary capital of the Free State, during the Second Boer War.  It was the site of several engagements during the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). By 1902 the original settlement had been almost completely destroyed.

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How the Brandwater Basin got it's name

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By early July 1900, the Boer invasions of British territory had been thrown back in disarray, the capitals of both republics had been captured, and Lord Roberts had all but won the conventional war. In the north east of the OFS, Imperial troops drove the remnants of the Orange Free State commandos out of Bethlehem, prompting them to retreat southwards towards the border with Basutoland, and into an area known as the ‘Brandwater Basin’

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‘The country to which the Boers had now retired may be described as a huge horse-shoe formed by the Wittebergen range, which extends round from Commando Nek opposite Ficksburg, by Moolman’s Hoek, Nelspoort, and Witnek to Slabbert’s and Retief’s Neks on the north, and then by the Roodebergen range, which continues from Retief’s Nek in a south-easterly direction through Naauwpoort Nek and Golden Gate to Generaal’s Kop, a magnificent mountain mass which connects the main Drakensberg ridge with the Roodebergen; the circumference of the horse-shoe measured this way is roughly seventy-five miles. The base-line of the horse-shoe, about forty miles in length, is formed by the Caledon River, separating the Free State from Basutoland. The principal gates of this great citadel are four – Commando, Slabbert, Retief and Naauwpoort Neks; but there are also a few posterns, such as Witnek and Nelspoort, Bamboeshoek and the Golden Gate, by which at need scouts could steal out or an enemy could creep in. Inside this well-guarded enclosure the land is again cut up into deep chines and valleys by the fantastic cleavings of the plateau and by the three rivers – the Brandwater, the Little Caledon, and the Caledon – which generously water this favoured country, named after the river which runs through the central valley, the Brandwater Basin’.