A small frame guard house stood west of the North Barracks, with two rooms, one for the guard on duty and one for prisoners, separated by a 75-pound iron grate. It was most often used to hold soldiers being punished, but Ho-Chunk who tried to return to Wisconsin and civilians accused of abusing Native Americans were also confined there at times. Fort Atkinson was built to protect the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Nation from the Meskwaki and Sauk (Sac and Fox) Nations and the Isanti Dakota (Santee Sioux) Nation, but it was also intended to limit Euro-American settlement in northeast Iowa until settlement could proceed in a controlled way after the Ho-Chunk Nation was restricted to the Neutral Ground. By 1848, the Ho-Chunk Nation had been removed to the Minnesota territory, and the last troops left Fort Atkinson in 1849, after which overseers paid by the military managed it until 1855, when it was sold to local private citizens.