One of the first projects undertaken by the Waldensians in their new settlement was an outdoor community oven, reflecting the tradition in the Valleys where each village had a field-rock oven shared by families for baking bread. While the men were occupied with running the sawmill, building homes, and establishing incomes, the women raised money for the oven by visiting area churches in their native dress to sing French hymns. After collecting enough funds, they had the oven built near the railroad across from the present-day post office, where a house later built by A.F. Sala still stands. Three stone masons, each from a different village in the Old Country, used local rocks to construct it. On June 20, 1893, the colony's record book celebrated the first successful baking of bread in the oven as a blessing of the Lord and a day of triumph.