Second-generation Protestants primarily from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York settled the area surrounding Plain in the late 1840s. Catholic immigrants from Bavaria, Germany, arrived in the 1860s, and their population grew rapidly. Fr. Charles Surges led the community in the Bavarian tradition of building a shrine in thanksgiving and as a petition against disasters, such as the May 1918 cyclone in which eight people were killed. The shrine to St. Anne consists of a chapel, a grotto inspired by the Grotto of our Lady of Lourdes in France, and 14 Stations of the Cross winding up the hill. It was built using volcanic fieldstones gathered nearby, with materials and labor donated by the community, and was dedicated on July 26, 1928.