Headquarters building of the Arsenal, from which Gen. Lyon planned his raid on Camp Jackson, is now the residence of Capt. William Peters of the St. Louis Medical Depot. The big, six-room, thick-walled structure was also erected in 1830.
In 1922 the post, which was established to make death-dealing weapons of war, was turned over to te Medical Department. Facilities are used to store medicines and as schools for dental technicians and medical equipment repairmen.
This building, originally erected as a barracks 162 years ago today, has been used for various purposes, including warehouse for muskets, cannon and medical supplies.
It is filled columns of the nation's newspapers for months. This sketch of the Arsenal, by artist of Harper's Weekly, has the Home Guards lounging about the spacious lawn of the reservation. These volunteer troops were called the "black guards" by Southern sympathetizers in St. Louis.
After Lyon, through influence of Frank P. Blair Jr. (whose statue is at Kingshighway and Lindell) was placed in charge of the military in St. Louis, he ordered defenses of Arsenal strengthened.
At the Civil War there was a great need of mounted troops for service agianst the Indians, particularly around 1876 at the time of the Custer massacre, and the Arsenal became a cavalry recruit depot.
