Cavalry Barracks and Band Barracks

This was the residential heart of Fort Lowell. Along here stood two long cavalry barracks and a band barracks, home to troopers of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Cavalry and to the regimental musicians. Each troop cooked its own rations, pork and beans and bread, in its own kitchen. When the army abolished the post trader in 1889, three rooms of the band barracks became a canteen selling beer, cider, and cigars, with billiards and chess to pass the desert evenings. Stables, corrals, and a blacksmith shop lay just north.

What the plaque says

From here west to the intersection of Craycroft and Fort Lowell Roads stood two cavalry barracks and one band barracks. The troops of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th cavalry regiments lived here. The band barracks housed the regimental bands when they were posted at Fort Lowell. In 1889, when the army abolished the post trader's position, it set aside three rooms of the band barracks as a canteen selling beer, wine, cider, soda, cigars, pies, sandwiches and playing cards, with billiards, checkers, cards, and chess for diversion. North of the cavalry barracks were covered stables and corrals, hay yards, tool rooms, and a blacksmith shop.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tucson — 6.5 mi
  The Old Pueblo — four thousand years of farming under the sky islands
• Mission San Xavier del Bac — 13 mi
  The White Dove of the Desert — the finest Spanish Baroque church in the country
• Saguaro National Park — 16 mi
  The giant cactus, and the O'odham who count it as kin

More markers nearby

• Fort Lowell — steps away
• Chapel of San Pedro at Fort Lowell — 0.4 mi
• Airmen Memorial Bridge — 2.4 mi
• El Conquistador Water Tower — 3.9 mi