Remembering a Sad Day for this Historic Landmark in Whitman, Massachusetts.

Fire Destroys The Toll House!



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Remembering a Sad Day for this Historic Landmark

A Wake-up to Remember

Normal morning, coffee prepared, ready to start what should have been a normal wonderful day.

Continue with morning routine. News, I need news, can't start this or any day without getting a dose of "the news!" Hit the tv "on" button. Lead story: "historic restaurant destroyed in early morning blaze!" What? Where? Story continues...

And there it was, an historic restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts burned to the ground on New Year's Eve 1984!

The Facts:

In the late 1930s, Ruth Graves Wakefield invented chocolate chip cookies in Whitman at the Toll House Inn on Bedford Street. The Toll House burned completely on New Year's Eve 1984, in a fire that originated in the kitchen. The inn was not rebuilt. The site is marked with a historical marker, and that land is now home to a Wendy's restaurant and Walgreens pharmacy, with the Toll House sign still in existence.

Ruth Graves Wakefield (June 17, 1903 – January 10, 1977) was the inventor of the Toll House Cookie, the first chocolate chip cookie, which she created circa 1938. She was also a graduate and educator, a business owner, a chef, and an author.

In 1930, she and her husband bought a tourist lodge (the Toll House Inn) in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts in Plymouth County. Located about halfway between Boston and New Bedford, it was a place where passengers had historically paid a toll, changed horses and ate home-cooked meals. When the Wakefields opened their business, they named the establishment the Toll House Inn. Ruth cooked and served all the food and soon gained local fame for her lobster dinners and desserts. The restaurant had many visitors, including Massachusetts' Senator John F. Kennedy. Her chocolate chip cookies soon became very popular. She invented chocolate chip cookies around 1938.

As the popularity of the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie increased, the sales of Nestlé's semi-sweet chocolate bars also spiked. Andrew Nestlé and Ruth Wakefield made a business arrangement: Wakefield gave Nestlé the right to use her cookie recipe and the Toll House name for one million dollars and a lifetime supply of Nestlé chocolate. Nestlé began marketing chocolate chips to be used especially for cookies and printing the recipe for the Toll House Cookie on its package.



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The Toll House can never be seen again except in your memories. It was a very special place to go on that special occasion.Fire reducing an historic restaurant to rubble. The only remaining part of the Toll House, the sign outside what was the restaurant. Sad!










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