Located in the center part of Fort Lowell Park and just NW of some fenced-in adobe ruins is an interpretive display that represents some significant history during the days when Fort Lowell was an active military fort. This particular display reads:
INFANTRY BARRACKS
The infantry barracks (no longer in existence) were 75 feet north of the hospital. The one-story building, like all of the barracks at Fort Lowell, had walls 20 inches thick, a dirt roof, and a wooden porch. The barracks were 20 feet wide and 145 feet long, with a 20-by-50-foot kitchen building out back.
From 1873 to 1886, 11 companies of infantry were stationed here, with one or two companies usually on duty. They protected ranches and railroads, provided escorts, and watched waterholes for Apaches resisting confinement on the reservation. The infantryman was less mobile and less expensive to maintain than his counterpart in the cavalry. He rarely saw combat in Arizona Territory.
LAUNDRESSES' QUARTERS
The laundresses' quarters at Fort Lowell sat northeast of the infantry barracks. They consisted of adobe structures, each of which had two 15-by-15 foot rooms.
From 1803 until 1883, when the army phased them out, laundresses were the only women with official status in the army. Commanders appointed 4 laundresses from each company and furnished them with rations, fuel, transportation, medical services and housing. They received their salary on payday when, under the watchful eye of the company commander, every soldier paid the women from $1.00 to $1.50 a month.
Lt. Col. George A. Forsyth, a post commander of Fort Lowell, observed of the laundresses, "They were good, honest, industrious wives, usually well on in years, minutely familiar with their rights which they dared to maintain with acrimonious volubility, as became the martially inclined, and they were ever ready for a fight, yet they were kind at heart if rough in manner, always ready to assist in times of distress."