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Convicts' Bread Oven

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1911. Colorado 65, 7.66 miles east of I-70 (NR)

Between 1899 and 1926 Colorado put prisoners to work building roads all across the state. A relic of that program is this concrete structure on a timber foundation, resembling an adobe oven, which was used to bake bread for the thirty-man road gangs and their guards. The roof is 4 feet high at the center, curving to 3 feet 3 inches at the walls. When the structure was hot, the coals were raked out and bread was inserted. The opening was sealed by a door and the round smoke hole in the roof was covered while the bread baked in the diminishing heat.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Data

What's Nearby

Grand Valley Canal Dam

Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Convicts' Bread Oven", [De Beque, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-ME23.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 511-511.

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