Nathan “Balfurd”, a Jewish refugee, from Russia, founded the present
business in 1927. The first location was in the basement, under the Corner
Room, now occupied by Zeno’s in State College. The equipment was a
steam pressing machine and a tiny boiler. No cleaning was done on this
site, only pressing and tailoring. Mr. “Max” Stickler was the first employee,
and continued to serve the company until his retirement in 1977.

In 1933, Mr. Balfurd sold the business to Ortho Vanderlin and John Glatz.
In August of this same year, the business was incorporated in Pennsylvania.
John Glatz became the sole owner in 1936 and at that time the company
began doing its own rug cleaning.

In December 1, 1952 Mr. Glatz and AB Fogelsanger bought the Ellis Dry
Cleaning Works, established in 1927, and the oldest cleaning plant in the
area. The new partnership operated this newly equipped petroleum plant as
“State College Cleaners” until June 1, 1966, at which time, it was
consolidated under Balfurd, Inc.

Mr. Glatz retired on July 1, 1966, and Scott Fogelsanger purchased his
shares of the business and became a partner along with his father. By this
time the main plant had outgrown it quarters. Five stores and four
dry-cleaning routes were in operation. Penn State Laundry became available
for sale, so in July of 1966, Balfurd’s bought and moved into this location.
The new building was remodeled; a new call office and fur vault was built
adjoining the main plant. There was customer parking off the call office.
The four original routes were consolidated into three larger ones.

This left the company with the West Beaver Avenue call office and stores on
South Garner Street and East College Avenue. Both stores were
discontinued June 15, 1968.

The advent of “synthetic fibers” in 1969, along with the new casual dress of
the university students effected a change in our local industry and the rest of
the country. A majority of our customers didn’t need us anymore.

In the early 70’s, Balfurd’s diversified into linen supply and uniform rentals.
During this decade, the owners built the linen business into rentals of over
30,000 pounds of laundry a week. By 1979, most of the business was largely
motels and uniform rentals. Balfurd’s was back on its feet again from the
disappointments of the late 60’s.

In December of 1980, Arthur Fogelsanger died suddenly of a heart attack.
This man, who was influential in the building and success of our company,
has been missed tremendously. At that time, his son Scott, took over the
presidency and has been there ever since.

In 1983, Bob Fogelsanger, third generation, began to purchase stock in
Balfurd, Inc. and was promoted to General Manager. In the early 80’s, with
35 employees, motels were starting their own in-house laundries and
restaurants began to use paper and polyester linens. We needed to do
something to increase business, and the healthcare field seemed to be the
answer. We started bidding for the business of hospitals and nursing homes
and in July of 1984, the Huntingdon County Nursing Home became our first
healthcare account. Since that time our sales efforts have been directed
toward the healthcare and rental fields.

In 1987, Balfurd purchased Campus Cleaners from Joe Smith, which
increased our dry-cleaning business by 30%. We had been cleaning their
shirts for many years. In 1991, we realized State College was growing rapidly
on the north side of town. We opened a dry-cleaning drop off store in the
area and it quickly became our second best store. In the early 90’s we slowly
and steadily grew all our different businesses.

In the summer of 1995, Lock Haven Dry-cleaning and Laundry was
purchased. This acquisition gave us a stronger presence in the
Lock Haven/Williamsport area for linen rentals. The dry-cleaning store was
revamped and all production was moved to State College. In the late 90’s,
sales became flat, so we decided more acquisitions were necessary in
gaining market share.

In 1996, we moved our dry-cleaning production area across the parking lot
into the old Spanor building because we needed more space for our growing
healthcare business.

In December of 2000, D & M Linen Service, in Altoona was purchased giving
us a stronger presence on the west and south areas of the state.

In April and May of 2001, two more businesses were purchased, they were
-- T & E Linen of Johnstown and Tartan Linen, of Ebensburg. This gave us
the shot in the arm we needed and helped us with name recognition in areas
that we currently weren’t servicing.

In 2003, we became a CRDN “Certified Restoration Drycleaning Network”
franchise specializing in fire and water textile restoration. This new venture
has expanded our dry-cleaning area to over 16 counties in
Central Pennsylvania.

Our facility in State College was bursting at the seams and the decision was
made to move out of the downtown. In December of 2004 we built a new
45,000 sq. ft. industrial plant in Tipton, PA which now houses our Healthcare
and Linen business. At the same time, we moved our dry cleaning production
to behind our North Atherton street store in State College.

Today, the company, with over ninety-five employees, rents more than a
hundred different textile items to restaurants, hotels, hospitals, colleges, and
other businesses. The delivery routes span over twenty-five counties in
three states. Our orange delivery trucks have been a familiar sight to
residents for many years.