The Oldest Pretzel Bakery In America Is A True Pennsylvania Landmark

In the mid-1800s, so the apocryphal story goes, Julius Sturgis was running a bakery when a man riding the rails stopped by looking for work. Sturgis had no job to offer, but he fed the man dinner. In exchange for the meal, the man gave Sturgis the recipe for his famous crispy pretzel and went on his way. As told in another story, an employee at the bakery fell asleep and let a soft pretzel bake for too long. The recipe's origins are fuzzy, much like the mysterious origins of pretzels in Medieval Europe, but the fact is the resulting pretzel bakery opened by Sturgis in 1861 was the first of its kind and is today a landmark in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

While the original location is now a historical site and no longer a working factory, the Sturgis family has been making pretzels (aside from some time during World War II) since 1861. Some of Sturgis' sons started their own bakeries, and it was his grandson who turned the pretzel company into what it is today.

In 1946, Julius Sturgis' grandson, Marriott "Tom" Sturgis, formed Tom Sturgis Pretzels. The company now runs the historic site and makes pretzels for sale across the country in nearby Shillington in the heart of America's Pretzel Belt. The commercially sold pretzels are no longer made by hand, but some are still made on the old-style soapstone hearth surfaces.

The original bakery is a true food nerd's destination and draws people to the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania, a two-hour drive from Philadelphia. There, you can still witness soft pretzels being made by hand and twist some yourself while touring the bakery in Lititz. The original bakery resides in one of the oldest buildings in Lititz. It has been restored, but it retains all the old-style charm that put it on the National Register of Historic Places.