French Bake Ovens, 1757

In 1757, the French army built bake ovens on the Ticonderoga peninsula to bake bread for troops as they began to fortify the post. Four ovens were quickly constructed, using a large opening as a chute to toss down wood for heating. As the post expanded in 1756, two more brick ovens were built just south of the fort, and engineers also planned two additional ovens within the fort's walls so bread could still be baked during a siege. Because other projects took precedence, construction on those interior ovens did not begin until 1757. Buried under many feet of earth to make them bombproof, they survived almost completely intact.

Ticonderoga, New York · United States