Stop 16 -- Sam Kee Hall
(Building 22328)
Built as the guard house in 1885 with a capacity for 38 men, the adobe structure originally cost $8,900. The rotating Provost Guard, predecessor to the Military Police, was quartered here on shifts, and the building contained a jail. After the reopening of the fort in 1954, it became the post office and later an office building. It is named after Sam Kee who, with his family, operated the Chinese restaurant, laundry, and other enterprising concessions on the fort for many years, starting in about 1881. A legend survives that, on at least one occasion, he advanced the soldiers’ pay for the fort when the monthly payroll was delayed.