During the first decade of the Theodore Roosevelt School, girls lived in the old fort hospital. Because the old barracks used for boys was inadequate, a new boys' dormitory was scheduled for construction in 1931, but before that work could begin, fire destroyed the old hospital building and the school was forced to build this girls' dormitory first. The monumental architecture of the dormitory buildings reflected the boarding school's stated purpose of removing Indian children from their traditional cultures and indoctrinating them into Anglo-American society.