A lot of companies first traded OTC until the mid-1970s and NASDAQ's establishment, because the national exchanges had such high listing standards. Many companies didn't IPO and become listed at the same time.
There were also a lot of regional exchanges that did take IPO's. Boston and the Pacific Exchange both had a LOT of new, smaller companies listed there that eventually jumped to the NYSE or American.
Just trading OTC doesn't make them a penny stock by any means. Even back then.
Of all the major, household name companies whose stock MIGHT have once traded in pennies (but that again doesn't automatically make them a "penny stock") I can think of only 1. Xerox. When it went public during the Great Depression as Haloid, the stock price may have dipped below $1 and it wasn't Exchange Listed until the 1960's. But the Great Depression had a lot to do with that, and like much of the US economy, they found their financial footing due to WWII and government contracts.
