In a 1956 story about the murals

The murals were painted more than 50 years ago and are portraits of life in the Army. They depict everything from guard duty to soldiers peeling potatoes on the dread kitchen police duty in the mess hall. They also show life in the barracks - soldiers shining their boots, cleaning their weapons, sharpening bayonets and dreaming of life outside the military.

There is nothing fancy about the murals. "You might call the style Army realism," said Robert Thomson, a federal preservation officer with the Presidio Trust, which administers the Presidio, now part of a national park.

The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society's newsletter calls the murals "an historical treasure."

The murals are almost unknown. They are not accessible to the public and adorn the walls of two large rooms in Building 1216, a former barracks at Fort Winfield Scott, which is part of the Presidio. The rooms, both about 120 feet long, are locked and will remain closed until the Presidio Trust figures out a way to let the public see the murals.

But they are worth seeing, especially as a look into the Presidio of another era, when the Army was on a war footing even during peacetime, and thousands of young men were drafted and served on active duty. It was during the Cold War, a time President John F. Kennedy called "a long twilight struggle."

Idea behind murals

The murals were painted in 1956 and 1957 and were the idea of Capt. Milton Saunders, commanding officer of the 21st Engineer Co., a unit that produced Army maps. Saunders wanted to spice up training classrooms and assigned three soldiers, led by Spc. 3 Perrin Gerber, a graduate of the Chicago School of Fine Arts and a commercial artist in civilian life.

Gerber had apparently been drafted into the service and assigned to the Presidio. He was so unhappy with his Army job as a mapmaker that he applied for a transfer every Friday for months. When he got the mural assignment, he took the Army itself as a theme.

He painted a few combat scenes, apparently from old pictures of World War II, but most of his paintings show routine Army life.

The Presidio of San Francisco was far from the front lines of the Cold War, the plains of Germany on the edge of the Iron Curtain, or the blasted hills of Korea where danger lurked.

A garrison post

The Presidio was a garrison post, there to protect the country, but it never fired a shot in anger. There was a routine to life in the Army: drill and routine and salutes, the slow passing of days on garrison duty.

Gerber painted cooks in the mess hall peeling potatoes, men in the barracks off duty, darning socks, shining boots, cleaning weapons and lounging around their bunk beds.

Another scene shows an officer inspecting the evening's guard detail; another depicts men getting ready for chemical warfare drill with gas masks. In another, bored-looking troops are listening to a lecture on re-enlisting for another hitch.

Life in the Army

Anyone who ever spent any time in the military will recognize the murals - the uniforms, the insignia, the feel of life as an ordinary soldier. In a 1956 story about the murals, the Army's Presidio newspaper called them "a masterpiece of accurate reporting on the Army."

"They are the most evocative pieces of Army life you can find here," said Damien Haffa, a resources specialist with the Presidio Trust, who has seen the murals.

In the next room, Gerber and the two other soldier artists drew a series of black-and-white cartoons that the Presidio Trust's Thomson calls "the dreams of soldiers."

These show elegantly dressed people in fancy restaurants, a '50s family going to church, a radio disc jockey playing Elvis Presley records, a farmer, a rabbi, and young men with slinky-looking women like the old-time pinup girls that used to be found in men's magazines.

One appears to be a portrait of Gerber himself; the artist as a young man, with a pencil behind his ear, sitting at an easel.

Gerber was in his early 20s when he painted the murals and left the Army after his two-year hitch was up. He became a commercial artist and did book illustrations. His work was featured in several gallery exhibitions. He died in 2009.

Seeking preservation

The murals he painted remained behind when the Army left the Presidio in 1994. The lower floors of Building 1216 have been turned into offices for the Presidio park stewards, but the rooms with the murals remained locked.

Some of the murals have been damaged by moisture, but most are in good condition, the colors bright, waiting for a chance to be seen again.

"We are writing a technical preservation report to come up with a plan to protect them and make them more accessible to the public," Thomson, the preservation officer, said.