The Tell City Pretzel Company has been baking its dense, hard, hand-twisted pretzels in the same downtown brick building since 1858 — by the same family recipe brought over from Switzerland by Casper Gloor. They are unlike anything sold as a "pretzel" elsewhere in the country: small, dark brown, salty, and almost cracker-hard. People mail-order them across the United States.
The shop on 7th Street is open weekday mornings and the smell of baking pretzels carries down the block. Stop in for a fresh bag, and pick up the pretzel rings — the traditional Tell City shape — to take home.