The Old Ordnance Room, the first of two limestone buildings erected at Jefferson Barracks to store gunpowder, was built in 1851 by Master Builder Francis Quinette of St. Louis at a cost of just over $18,000, including the surrounding stone wall, and remained in use despite doubts about whether a quality building could be erected for that amount. East of it lay the limestone quarry that supplied stone for most buildings in Jefferson Barracks' historic section and for many notable Missouri structures, including Daniel Boone's home, the Old St. Louis Cathedral near the Arch, and the State Capitol Building, while today limestone is used extensively as a raw material in Portland Cement. During World War II, this area formed part of Reception Center #1772, where from March 1941 until July 1943 more than 125,000 troops were received, processed, equipped, and sent on to training centers or field force units by a staff of forty officers and 311 enlisted personnel working around the clock every day of the year. Some buildings here were Series 700 sixty-three-man temporary barracks, twenty-nine feet six inches wide, eighty feet long, and two stories tall, though double bunks allowed each to house more than eighty men. In the early 1940s, approximately 275 frame buildings were constructed at Jefferson Barracks, more than 150 of them these temporary barracks, built with wood platform framing on three-foot centers, wood joists and girders, wood sash windows, and continuous covers called aqua media that improved ventilation during rain and helped protect the buildings from weathering and rot. Inside the compound south of the museum building, an area was designated as a Blue Star Memorial By-Way by a marker presented to St. Louis County Parks by the Mehlville Garden Club on September 12, 2004; the blue star symbol came from World War II service flags displayed in thousands of homes, and the designation was intended for parks and historical grounds to honor soldiers who served overseas.