The military authorities tried to encourage trade and transport by river, and cereals were mostly transported towards Sisak and Karlovac. In 1776, the authorities of the Gradiška regimental district sent seven young men to study shipbuilding in Klosternenburg. During that period, which was characterised by industrial revival. and a style of life in keeping with all the lastest advances of that time, life in what already was Stara Gradiška, was threatened by the final work on the reconstruction of the fortification (36). Life inside the fortification was being extinguished according to a precise plan and the whole area was designed for military purposes.
The movement of the population and rebuilding of houses on new sites in accordance with the plan, did not cause major technical difficulties since all the houses were built of packed earth and timber. The result of this urbanisation was, however, highly negative in terms of the social development of the settlement situated beneath the fortress. New military barracks were built in the area meant for civilian houses ( 1789) and the new Franciscan monastery, built in 1769, and the Orthodox church, built in 1780,(37) could not help to revive the village, since the same buildings, only made of timber, had already been there before.
The fact that the Franciscans left the monastery in 1787 and moved to a newly built monastery in Cerknik (38) is a clear indication of the changing course of history.
The Waning of the Civilian Settlement
The urban population decreased continually until only 44 private houses were left around the fortification. At the same time the population of the settlements scattered around was slowly growing. In the same year, there were 72 houses in Donji Varoš, 54 in Gornji Varoš and 27 houses in the new settlement, Uskoci. The inhabitants of the fortification settlement (craftsmen and merchants) moved to Nova Gradiška, which was developing quickly and provided better conditions.
Although the community of Stara Gradiška formally existed up to 1786, this was in fact only in bureaucratic terms. Having taken on agriculture as their new main activity, these people were forced to accept their new social status and position. Stara Gradiška was paralysed in social and urban terms and the military authorities made a final effort to take over the entire area. In 1784 they bought a further 40 houses so that only 4 civilian houses were left inside the fortification. From that moment, Stara Gradiška was no longer a settlement with urban functions, but rather a lifeless fortification giving shelter to 400 border guards. The soldiers were soon left without work and after the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 the fortification served no purpose. Thus the River Sava lost its role as the boundary between the two empires and consequently the fortification was abandoned. This event symbolically represents the end of the existence of the military border land in this area and the reintegration of this area into the territory of civilian Croatia (1881).