198 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 176 



spikes and nails. The balloon-frame design is correlated with the 

 rapid settlement of the Western United States, the availability of 

 dimension lumber even in areas remote from timber production 

 through the development of the railway transportation system, and 

 the adaptability of this lumber to the needs of the settler on the vanish- 

 ing frontier. It is entirely possible, in this instance, that the lumber 

 used in the Commissary Storehouse had been received by rail at Bis- 

 marck (reached by the Northern Pacific Eailroad in 1873), and from 

 that point hauled by wagon to Fort Stevenson. By 1873, shipment 

 of lumber long distances by water had probably become impractical. 



SOUTH OFFICERS' QUARTERS 



Three sets of Officers' Quarters are shown on the Ground Plan of 

 Fort Stevenson, of 1879, arranged in a row along the west side of the 

 parade ground and facing the Guard House, to the east (fig. 15) . The 

 plan does not identify these quarters separately, but it does show the 

 middle building of the group as a single unit, the other two as double 

 units — i. e., for two families each. The description of these quarters 

 provided in the inspection report of the same year gives a good account 

 of the construction of these private dwellings, and clearly indicates 

 that the middle unit (the single dwelling) was that provided for the 

 commanding officer of the post (Mattison, 1951, pp. 32-33). For 

 convenience, therefore, the three sites are here designated as North 

 Officers' Quarters, Commanding Officer's Quarters, and South Officers' 

 Quarters. Excavations were conducted at the sites of the South Offi- 

 cers' Quarters and of the Commanding Officer's Quarters. 



In addition to these permanent buildings for officers' homes, tem- 

 porary quarters of logs were erected in the immediate vicinity of the 

 more permanent buildings, and were used until the latter were finished. 

 These cabins are shown on a sketch made by de Trobriand in May 

 1868 (de Trobriand, 1951, opp. p. 196). Tlie location of these tempo- 

 rary log buildings with respect to the permanent buildings is somewhat 

 more clearly revealed on a plan of the post published in 1870 (U. S. 

 Army, Surg. Gen. Off., 1870, p. 394). They were placed in the same 

 part of the whole post as the permanent quarters, but to the north and 

 south of them, and on the site of the Commissary Storehouse, subse- 

 quently built. One of these log structures is visible on a photograph 

 made after the abandonment of the military post (pi. 33). There is, 

 however, no mention of them in either the inspection report or plan 

 of 1879. 



The permanent officers' quarters were built during the summer of 

 1868, and at least the Commanding Officer's Quarters were occupied 

 in October of that year (de Trobriand, 1951, p. 340). It seems prob- 



