Julius Sturgis Pretzel House | |
Location | 219-221 E. Main St., Lititz, Pennsylvania |
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Coordinates | 40°9′23″N76°18′2″W / 40.15639°N 76.30056°W Coordinates: 40°9′23″N76°18′2″W / 40.15639°N 76.30056°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1784 |
Architect | Kreiter, Peter |
NRHP reference No. | 74001789 [1] |
Added to NRHP | December 16, 1974 |
The Sturgis Pretzel House of Lititz, Pennsylvania, founded in 1861, [2] is the oldest commercial pretzel bakery in the United States. [3] [4] The Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery remains active in pretzel production and is a tourist attraction.
In 1850, Julius Sturgis owned a bread business in Lititz. That year, he provided a homeless man with dinner. According to legend, the homeless man had been on a train that went behind the bread business, and got off the train after seeing the bakery to get food and a job; [5] however, Julius did not have a job available, but nonetheless fed the man. The man in return gave Julius a pretzel recipe. He had never baked pretzels before, so he tested the recipe out on his family and added pretzels to his bakery. By 1861 the recipe had proven to be so popular that Julius stopped his bakery to make pretzels; he started the first commercial pretzel business in the United States. [5]
To this day the Sturgis family still bakes pretzels using the same recipe Julius used to start his pretzel bakery in 1861. Marriott Sturgis, born in 1910, was Julius's grandson. He was nicknamed "Tom Sturgis" because he worked alongside his uncle Tom Keller and they had similar baking styles. Tom's family moved to Reading, Pennsylvania where Tom continued to work in pretzel bakeries, eventually he—with his brother Correll—opened their own pretzel bakery in 1936 called Sturgis Brothers. However, Tom had to close down Sturgis Brothers due to the drafts for World War II. [2] [6]
After serving in a munitions factory during that war, Tom Sturgis continued the pretzel baking industry and opened another bakery called Tom Sturgis Pretzels. The business is still in operation today, run by Tom's grandson, Bruce Sturgis. The Sturgis family also manages Julius Sturgis's original pretzel bakery. [2]
The bakery was visited by children's television host Fred Rogers on a 1981 episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood . [7]
Besides being the first commercial pretzel bakery in the United States, the Sturgis Pretzel House has a long history. The building was built in 1784 by a man named Peter Kreiter (original inscription: "Er Bauet Von Peterkreiter") and is one of the original structures in Lititz. The house was built from stones taken from the streets and from the surrounding timber forest; it had windows to fire muskets to prevent against Native American attacks. The Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery is on the list of National Register of Historic Places. [2] [8] Since 1850, pretzels have been made in Lititz with a recipe derived from French monasteries.
Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread, but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes, cookies, and pieces of bread to their center. As heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer center". Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.
Lititz is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, 9 miles (14 km) north of the city of Lancaster. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 9,370.
A Danish pastry is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the viennoiserie tradition. The concept was brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, where the recipe was partly changed and accommodated by the Danes to their liking, and has since developed into a Danish specialty. Like other viennoiserie pastries, such as croissants, it is a variant of puff pastry made of laminated yeast-leavened dough that creates a layered texture.
A pretzel, from German pronunciation, standard German: Breze(l) is a type of baked pastry made from dough that is commonly shaped into a knot. The traditional pretzel shape is a distinctive symmetrical form, with the ends of a long strip of dough intertwined and then twisted back onto itself in a particular way. Today, pretzels come in a wide range of shapes.
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who wish to consume the baked goods on the premises. Confectionery items are also made in most bakeries throughout the world.
Kringle is a Northern European pastry, a variety of pretzel. Pretzels were introduced by Roman Catholic monks in the 13th century in Denmark, and from there they spread throughout Scandinavia and evolved into several kinds of sweet, salty or filled pastries, all in the shape of kringle.
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Thomas' is a brand of English muffins and bagels in North America, established in 1880. It is owned by Bimbo Bakeries USA, one of the largest baking companies in the United States, which also owns Entenmann's, Boboli, Sara Lee, Stroehmann, and Arnold bread companies. Advertisements for the muffins place emphasis on their "nooks and crannies". The company also produces toasting or swirl breads, pitas, wraps, and bagels.
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Lititz Moravian Historic District is a national historic district located at Lititz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The district includes 113 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, and 2 contributing structures in Lititz. It has notable examples of the Federal and Late Victorian architectural styles. The buildings date from about 1755 to 1930. Notable buildings include the Warden's House, Corpse House (1786), Werner House, Tinsley Cottage, Sisters' House (1758), Moravian Church (1787), Brothers' House (1759), Lititz National Bank, Commonwealth National Bank (1922), Mary Dixon Memorial Chapel (1884) on the campus of Linden Hall School, and General Sutter Inn.
A baking mix is a mixed formulation of ingredients used for the cooking of baked goods. Baking mixes may be commercially manufactured or homemade. Baking mixes that cater to particular dietary needs, such as vegan, gluten-free, or kosher baking mixes, can be bought in many places.
General Host Corp. was a New York-based food and food-related company. It was also the owner of Frank's Nursery & Crafts until the company's bankruptcy in 2004.
Miller Baking Company is an American, privately owned company that specializes in a line of bakery products known by the brand name Pretzilla. The company is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Pretzel Belt, or Pennsylvania Snack Belt, is a concentration of pretzel and snack food makers in the central southeastern region of Pennsylvania, roughly coterminous with Pennsylvania Dutch Country. The first commercial pretzel manufacturer in the United States, the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, was founded in the region in the borough of Lititz in 1861, and remains extant there today. By the beginning of the 20th century the pretzel had become a cultural institution in the region. Manufacturers also include several pretzel and chip bakeries in Hanover, Pennsylvania, which holds the nickname "the snack capital of the world", as well as other examples like Hershey, Pennsylvania, home of the Hershey Chocolate Company.
Media related to Sturgis Pretzel House at Wikimedia Commons