Infantry Barracks

Cameraderie

NPS Pnoto

Quick Facts

Amenities

5 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Restroom, Trash/Litter Receptacles, Water - Drinking/Potable, Wheelchair Accessible

This infantry barracks is one of three reconstructed barracks at Fort Scott. The army laid it out similar to the dragoon barracks across the parade ground with a mess hall and kitchen downstairs and sleeping quarters upstairs. Its designer planned it to be a second dragoon barracks with stables in the vacant area south of the barracks. However, within a year after the fort's establishment, one of the dragoon companies transferred, leaving one company of dragoons and two of infantry. The barracks thus became a home for infantry and the army never built the second stables. Today, this building is not open to the public, except for the restrooms downstairs, which are open seasonally and a meeting hall upstairs used for special events. Military reenactors use the vacant area to the south as an encampment area. At the rear of the building is a cistern, historically used to capture rainwater.

Cistern

A stone cistern, presently covered with a huge single slab of native rock, is near the infantry barracks. Cisterns are structures designed to store rainwater. Using the roof as a rain collection surface, gutters and downspouts delivered water to the cistern. The possibility exists that this cistern dates from Army days, although there is no supporting documentary evidence.