Hubbell Trading Post Administrative History

Building Roster

Figure 30. The Bread Oven, HB-7, was an important part of the Hubbell operation until the 1930s. A Manchester photo taken October, 1991.

Bread Oven

HB-7: The Bread Oven located close to the Manager's Residence is the last of a series of ovens. The first bread oven was built during the years 1897 to 1903. Bread was made at Hubbell Trading Post, to be sold there and at other posts belonging to them, until the 1930s. This last bread oven was coal-fired. About 200 loaves would have been baked on baking days; bread was baked about three times a week. A baker was employed. The dough was mixed in the kitchen of the Hubbell home, also close by.

The bread oven at the trading post is a substantial structure, 12' 5" by 14' 7". It has a stone foundation up to three feet above grade, brick oven structure above the stone. It once had a chimney, probably on its southeast corner. The cast iron door is a New Model Oven Door (patented March 4, 1902), and there are smaller cast iron doors, one a viewing door that at one time would have had an isinglass window, and a cleanout door.

This structure was stabilized in 1986. It has been suggested---as early as Benjamin Levy's Historic Structures Report of 1968---that returning the oven to its original function as a bread oven (rather than just an object of historic interest) would tend to enhance the living trading post aspects of the site as well as provide an authentic sales item. [19]