Penn Herb Co. Ltd.

History (1962-1990)

In 1962, due to advancing age, Dr. Kalkosinski realized that he needed help to run the business and organize the hundreds of herbs and formulas that were now in use. It was in July of that year that William Betz, Sr. purchased Penn Herb Company, in order to continue the Penn Herb tradition of providing for our customer's health needs. At that time, an extensive reorganization of the company took place under the watchful eye of our founder. The doctor remained active in the business for another 10 years, generously sharing his wealth of knowledge regarding herbs, formulas and healthy living.

Throughout the 1960's, Penn Herb Company maintained the storefront shown above, with the entrance at 603 North Second Street. You can see Dr. Kalkosinski's sign in the picture, as well as the stained glass windows alongside the sign. The interior of the store is shown with a large assortment of herbs in glass containers, and many natural remedies in the showcases. William Betz, Sr. is pictured with the large assortment of books available for consumer education. We continue this tradition today with a large selection of reference books available for your perusal.

Since the 1970's, Penn Herb Company has experienced continued growth. We became incorporated in 1971, and since have been known as Penn Herb Company, Ltd. In 1975, Penn Herb became the exclusive US importer for Olbas Herbal Remedies from Switzerland. We have been offering these fine products in our store since the 1960's, and are proud to continue making this fine line available nationwide through thousands of retailers.

One thing that was lacking back in the 1960's was a complete catalog of our herbs, along with our vitamins and extensive line of natural remedies. So, in the early 1970's, Jane Betz (wife of William Betz, Sr.) manually typed pages and pages of herbs and product descriptions on her Smith Corona typewriter. These pages were then mimeographed and stapled together to form one of our first mail order catalogs. We continued with this process through the 1980's, using faster and more up-to-date printing equipment. Today, we still produce the text and photos contained in our catalog in-house (although no longer on the Smith Corona). The catalog is now available entirely online.