The Town That Inspired ‘Gilmore Girls’, Washington, Connecticut

When Amy Sherman-Palladino first pitched a TV show about a mother and daughter who are more like best friends to the WB back in 1999, she was going to have the main characters live in a city area. But then she went on vacation to Connecticut.

“I stayed at an inn, and it was very charming,” she explains in an interview with AV Club, “…and everybody seemed to know each other, and there was a pumpkin patch across the street. I went to a diner, and people kept getting up to get their own coffee.”

“…So beautiful,” she elaborates to the Desert News, “and everything looked like it was covered in sugar. It was just like one of those eggs that your stare in at Easter.”

The writer figured that if a 16-year old kid with a baby was going to run away from home, it would be to a very warm and safe and accepting place. And so, Stars Hollow was born: a somewhere-in-Connecticut, storybook town named after a legend of two star-crossed lovers who found each other on its soil. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).