Fort Abercrombie's guardhouse functioned much like a police station. Soldiers on guard detail provided security for the fort and guarded prisoners held in the guardhouse's cells. In the late 1860s, the guard detail averaged between eight and 18 soldiers, and the guardhouse typically held four or five prisoners on any given day. Soldiers assigned to guard detail served a 24-hour shift, and each morning the guard detail was replaced in a ceremony called "Guard Mount." Soldiers were held in the guardhouse for a variety of offences, with drunkenness and desertion among the typical problems in the frontier army. Prisoners were put on work details doing tasks such as picking up trash, digging new pits for sinks, or reloading ammunition. After Fort Abercrombie closed in 1877, the guardhouse was sold, dismantled, and moved to a farm, and later it was moved back to its original site at Fort Abercrombie.