Stars Hollow is a fictional town in Connecticut featured on the television show Gilmore Girls and the Netflix miniseries Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. It is the town in which the protagonists Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory Gilmore reside. Stars Hollow is depicted as a close-knit community located roughly thirty minutes from the state capitol of Hartford. The original town square set was located on the Warner Bros. studio back lot, just around the corner from the exterior set for the hospital from ER.
History of Stars Hollow
Founding
The town of Stars Hollow was founded in 1779, but there are conflicting legends regarding how it got its name. The traditionally accepted story involves two star-crossed lovers who seemed destined never to be together, until separate cosmological phenomena involving stars led them to each other at the spot where the town now exists. This is celebrated annually at the Firelight Festival, shown in the season one episode "Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers" and the season four episode "Nag Hammadi is Where They Found the Gnostic Gospels." Some residents of the town have been shown to doubt this story, like Luke Danes, who remarks it's just as likely the town is named after a hypothetical sex worker named Star.
Another story of Stars Hollow's founding was presented in the season five episode "To Die and Let Diorama." A talking display built in the new Stars Hollow Museum explained that a Puritan family first discovered the area while looking for a place to settle. The town therefore gained its name from their observation of "the stars, so bright; this forest, so hollow!"
The Revolutionary War
During the American Revolutionary War, a "battle" was fought in Stars Hollow involving 12 men who stood and waited for a group of incoming Redcoats who never arrived. This battle is re-enacted annually in the town square, as seen in season one, episode eight, "Love and War and Snow" and in season five, episode 11, "Women of Questionable Morals." This second occurrence marked the beginning of the addition of the town prostitute, who slept with the British general to delay the troops.
A statue of Casimir Pulaski, Polish nobleman, soldier, and military commander who has been called, together with his counterpart Michael Kovats de Fabriczy, "the father of the American cavalry." sits across from the town square, next to Luke's Diner.
On the town square's gazebo is the town's Liberty Bell sign, which reads:
Town Square
The center of town consists primarily of businesses surrounding a park with a gazebo. The town square is the location of Luke's Diner, Doose's Market, Miss Patty's dance studio (which hosts town meetings), the town's house of worship (which functions as both a church and synagogue), and the public high school. In the Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life episode "Summer," the office of The Stars Hollow Gazette is shown to be located here, as well.
The town square serves as a primary setting throughout the Gilmore Girls TV show and Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Many town functions and private events are held in this area, including the Firelight Festival and the Battle of Stars Hollow. In the Gilmore Girls series finale "Bon Voyage," Rory's farewell party is held in a rainstorm under a tent in the park. The wedding of Lorelai and Luke takes place in the gazebo in "Fall," the fourth episode of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Third Street
Third Street is the location of the Dragonfly Inn, which Lorelai and Sookie St. James purchase in season three after its previous owner, Fran Weston, dies in episode 20, "Say Goodnight, Gracie." The inn undergoes renovations throughout season four until its test-run opening in episode 22, "Raincoats and Recipes." It remains Lorelai and Sookie's primary business for the rest of the show.
According to the Stars Hollow Historical Society, Third Street is among the town's worst historical landmarks to take your children. In the 18th century, it was known as "Sores and Boils Alley," where sick and suffering people throughout the region came to have sores and boils lanced. A small leper colony is said to have existed there as well.