The fort's most elaborate structure, a two story, Victorian-style mansion, was built in 1884-1885 for about $4,000.00. An expensive home at that time! Among its thirteen rooms (originally designed as a duplex) were a drawing room, a sewing room with skylight, a dining room, and seven bedrooms. The exterior included two verandas and two wings covered with fancy shingles in bands of alternating colors.
Post Commander Major Eugene Beaumont, the home's first occupant, complained: "The large amount of useless and unnecessary ornamentation has been of great expense and waste of time, and such a plan should never have been designed to make work for the carpenters."
But the waste was not total. Beaumont gave away two of his daughters in marriage to Fort Bowie officers in this house.
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