Formerly a tiny hamlet, Kinloch Rannoch was enlarged and settled, under the direction of James Small, formerly an Ensign in Lord Loudoun's Regiment, mainly by soldiers discharged from the army, but also by displaced crofters. Small had been appointed by the Commissioners for the Forfeited Estates to run the Rannoch estates, which had been seized from the clan chieftains who had supported the Jacobites following the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Local roads and bridges were improved, enabling soldiers at Rannoch Barracks to move more freely around the district. The Soldiers' Trenches were dug on nearby Rannoch Moor in an unsuccessful attempt to create better quality agricultural land.