Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery

After enjoying the trains of Strasburg, Adventure Monday Part II brought us to America's first commercial pretzel bakery. Founded in 1861 by Julius Sturgis, the bakery is still maintained and run by the Sturgis family.


The buddies loved the hands-on part of our tour, where they learned to roll their own pretzels, using salted dough. It was easy and now that we all three have certificates that declare us "Official Pretzel Twisters", we can't wait to try it at home and wow our friends and neighbors.

After learning to roll, our friendly tour-guide explained how pretzels were first made, how they are mass produced now, and filled us in on the history of this particular bakery. The buddies declared much of this "too boring" and squirmed, wiggled, and even laid down on the century-old basement floor in exhausted boredom. Between corrections, I managed to learn a few tidbits: The first hard pretzel was made by accident when young Julius Sturgis, at the time a pretzel twister at another bakery, accidentally left a tray of pretzels in the ovens overnight. They slowly baked over low heats through the evening. The next morning, the fires were lit again before the mistake was discovered, thus baking the pretzels a second time. The result was a crispy pretzel. Young Julius thought they tasted great and pitched the idea to his boss, who turned him down. So, a few years later, he bought his own pretzel bakery and began producing the first hard pretzels.