Ehrhart and Karl Pharmacy

Urban Joseph Ehrhart emigrated from Alsace Lorraine to America at the age of two. The family settled in Chicago. Ehrhart's first job was as an errand boy for Boericke and Tafel. He worked his way up the ladder until he and a friend, Louis Karl, a graduate student pharmacist, decided to start their own business.

In 1912 Ehrhart and Karl was first opened at 143 N. Wabash Avenue, the third floor of the Bishop building. When Bishop Fur needed the third floor, Ehrhart and Karl moved up to the seventh floor. Finally, the whole building was sold and the new owners tore it down. Ehrhart and Karl moved once again to 17 N. Wabash Avenue.

Louis Karl died in the early 1930s. Before he died, Urban Ehrhart bought all of Karl's stock in the company.

Urban Ehrhart died in 1935 and his son Roger, a Ph.D. from Illinois Medical School, took over the company.

Roger Ehrhart became ill with cancer in the middle 1970s. Three weeks before he died in 1977, he sold Ehrhart and Karl to Luyties, who removed all of the machinery and tablet makers including the ovens and triturating bowls.

Luyties then, in 1979, sold the remains of the company to Richard Levinson, Peter Keish and a third partner, John Cain, who remained with the company briefly. The company had a staff, a name, and a long-standing reputation for quality along with a large supply of tablets and liquid potencies, but little if any equipment to help speed the actual production of product.

After about ten years, Keish and Levinson came to a parting of ways. This left Levinson with a severe manpower shortage in production and manufacturing which further crippled the company.

By 1993 the company had entered bankruptcy court where it was purchased by David Mann.

At present, Mann is working on ways to bring the company out off dormancy and back to life.

Thanks to David Mann for supplying much of the historical information.