Consolidated Mess Hall, Building 67 (site) (New Rochelle, New York)

 military  Add category

The new consolidated mess hall, built in 1886, was experimental when it opened—the first of its kind in the regular Army. By long tradition, soldiers in the Army cooked and took their meals by companies (around 100 men), both when at a fixed post and in the field. Each company designated a man as cook and had its own kitchen and mess with the necessary equipment for preparing and serving meals. The cook drew the company’s rations from regimental stores, and the men of the company often pooled resources to provide supplementary supplies. While this system fostered the self-sufficiency of each basic fighting unit and was an active embodiment of the company as the soldier’s essential military family, the quality and variety of meals depended greatly on the skill and diligence of the company cook and his assistants and on the company’s enterprise and funds to supplement the basic ration. Forward thinking officers argued that messing by companies made inefficient use of manpower and supplies and became a source of friction and complaint among the men, especially if the cook were unskilled or poorly supervised.

The room could seat around 600 men at trestle tables and benches, so in the 1880s and 1890s the hall could accommodate the entire garrison for a meal at once. Food was delivered to the dining room on a large cart with flanged steel wheels, like those for a railroad car. The mess hall staff rolled the cart in from the kitchen on rails set flush in the floor. A turntable in the center of the dining hall allowed the cart to be turned and rolled along rails running the length of the room. This equipment received repeated comment. In a January 1888 report, the post surgeon, J.V. Middleton, said, “The railroad from the kitchen running through the hall in each direction is labor saving and of great convenience”. Several years later, a history of New York City and its suburbs mentioned the “novel system of railroad tracks and cars for conveying cooked food from the kitchen to the mess-tables with the least trouble and a minimum loss of heat” at the Davids Island Mess Hall.

By the early 1960s, the railcar was long gone, the dining area had probably been expanded, cafeteria service had replaced table service, four-person tables had replaced the 16-to-20-man tables, linoleum tiles covered the floors, and florescent lighting was in use.

Fort Slocum Architectural Documentation Volume 4, Part 1 of 2: davidsisland.westchesterarchives.com/index.php?option=c...