page_title: Tolland, Connecticut
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tolland, Connecticut / History
caption_attribution_description: Old County Jail &amp; Museum, Tolland, Connecticut
context_page_description: Tolland is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 15,052 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: Tolland was named in May, 1715, and incorporated in May, 1722 from Windsor. The town was over 20 miles away from Tolland and was incorporated to grow the population out in the hill areas. According to some, the town derives its name from being a toll station on the old road between Boston and New York.  Alternatively, its name could have been taken after Tolland in Somerset, England. Today Interstate 84, the main highway connecting New York City, Hartford, Connecticut and Boston, bisects Tolland, but the town retains a charming village feel. Tolland Green is the informal center of the community, and a national historic district. The Green's features include an old-fashioned penny candy and antiques store known to locals as the 'Red and White'; the town's original 19th-century town hall, now an arts center; the Old Tolland County Jail and Museum; the Tolland County Courthouse and former public library; the 'Tolland Inn' bed and breakfast; and the Hicks-Stearns Family Museum, a restored Victorian house. The architectural styles on display, including the white steeples of several churches, are reminiscent of a picture-postcard New England scene. The town is also home to the supposedly haunted Daniel Benton Homestead, built in 1720 and the oldest house in Tolland.
  Many of the town's adults work in Hartford, located about 30 minutes away, often at one of the city's many insurance companies, or for the University of Connecticut in Storrs, to the south. A family-oriented town, the landscape of Tolland is primarily composed of houses on plots of land around two acres. Undeveloped, forested land covers the area between the town's many residential developments. Containing two state forests and several municipal parks, the town retains a relatively rural character.
  The Tolland Public Library opened in 1899. Located in the old county courthouse until 1985, the library was moved to the former Hicks Memorial School in 1985. It was significantly expanded in 2017.
  In 2006, Tolland opened the new Tolland High School to support the growing number of students. The town is also expanding with new commercial and residential developments.
  Tolland has ranked among "Best Places to Live in America" by CNN magazine in the "Small Town" category several times:
  In April 2008, Wes Craven began filming scenes for his 2009 movie My Soul to Take inside the former Tolland High School.
  In September 2019, it was announced that Birch Grove Elementary School would undergo renovation after the foundation started to crack due to the presence of pyrrhotite in the cement. Construction is expected to complete in August 2021.
caption: Old County Jail Museum
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