Who we are

Penn Valley Pipes & Tobacco Company was founded in 1998 and run out of a small database program on an IBM desktop. After only a few short years in business we were able to move to our now famous "New Location" (pictured below) in rural Penn Valley just off the Main Line west of Philadelphia.

Without electricity to the shop it was difficult to maintain our online operation and in 2003 we closed up shop temporarily while we searched for an even more remote location. Our search took us to a tiny hamlet in Upstate New York where 50 years ago crime bosses held an ill-fated conclave in hope of establishing order within organized crime. The gathering was raided before it could begin leaving a deep cultural and historic gap in the town of Apalachin; a void which Penn Valley Pipes & Tobacco Co. rushed to fill.

We move

For about $75 US and the help of the two women, Lillie and Marie, pictured above, we were able to lift the entire store onto the beds of two pick up trucks that happened to be parked next each other in an adult outlet parking lot. After suggesting to the two drivers that the photos we took of them emerging from the establishment might prove embarrassing when mailed to their wives, they agreed to drive our store to it's new destination. The trucks then drove side-by-side at a steady 18 miles per hour over rough terrain and the three lane Interstate 81for approximately 209.8762 miles before reaching the store's current location. (Prints and negatives were duly destroyed — our hats off to drivers Ted and Rev. Kyle L. for their good humor throughout the ordeal)

 

Electricity restored

With our storefront firmly planted on solid dirt and an 80 foot well pumping precious fluids into our facility, we only needed the electricity we lacked in Penn Valley in order to get up and running. As luck would have it one of the neighbors was hooked up to the grid and when they were away at work one day our assistant shimmied up the utility pole and tapped into their transformer. We were back in business!