To live 100 years is rare, but to be in business in Utah that long is even rarer.
For Carr Printing Co. the centennial celebration as Davis County's first and leading printing firm is linked to two things - family and public service.In 1890, the business began in the basement of a home on Bountiful's Main Street as Lamoni Call set up shop with a few fonts of secondhand type and a manual press.
Today, Carr Printing is moving headlong into it's second century with tightly focused services that include printing yearbooks, municipal bonds and Davis County directories.
More importantly, the business has also become the perennial supplier of Utah's election ballots and shaper of state election laws.
A recent resolution passed by the Utah Legislature honored the firm for its many years of providing election services to municipalities and counties throughout the state.
"Carr Printing Co. has exemplified the American tradition of family business entrepreneurship and has set an example of good business and exemplary community citizenship," the resolution read.
Father and son, Vernon B. and Lloyd B. Carr explained how it was their entrepreneur ancestor, Call, who began the printing business and a handful of other enterprises in early Bountiful. Included in his list of business startups was an ice enterprise, a theater, a jewelry and watchmaking store, a drugstore and soda fountain, a circulating library and the Davis County Clipper, which was eventually sold to partner John Stahle Sr.
While computers and offset presses have replaced the manual presses and hand-set type, the philosophy of the business has remained the same since Willard Carr married Call's daughter and bought the business in 1905.
"I have always advocated standard or better work and service at reasonable prices," Willard Carr's memoirs read.
"We try to remember the customer is why we are in business," said Vernon Carr, chairman of the company's board.
Along with Lagoon and Bountiful Lumber, Carr Printing is one of the oldest continually operating businesses in Davis County and among a select few businesses in the state that have celebrated a centennial year.
The business still remains in the family - now a privately held corporation - with fifth-generation descendants of Call among the printing plant's 47 employees. Four descendants of Willard Carr sit on the company's governing board. Along with Vernon and Lloyd Carr, Lowell Carr serves as president and Vernice Carr serves as company treasurer.
Sales last year were between $3 and $4 million, according to Lloyd Carr, the company's executive vice president.
Over the years, along with several changes in location, the firm's services have changed. The company once printed everything from labels for Davis County's canneries to butter wrappers for local farmers to wedding invitations. At one time the company operated a stationery store and a quick-print shop.
The equipment has also changed. The company pioneered its own desktop publishing system before most had even heard of such a thing. Also gone are most of the presses that used hot metal type.
Now the company concentrates on what it does best in a new two-story plant completed in 1984 at 580 W. 100 North.
Chief among those areas is elections. In 1902, the business began its first election supply service to school districts and local governments in Morgan and Davis counties. Vernon Carr, the company's chairman of the board, explained that most municipalities and counties in the state have ballots printed at the plant.
Last year, the company provided election services to each municipality and county in the state. That was, of course, after Vernon Carr offered to print the ballots for Alton, a small town in Kane County, for free. The town doesn't have enough residents to make Carr Printing's services worth their while.
Vernon Carr, nicknamed "Mr. Election," said that when the election service business started at the beginning of the century, it became quickly evident there was a wide variety of Utah election laws and ballot formats. Those problems have prompted company officials to frequently suggest changes.
After spending years lobbying for refinements in elections laws and practices, Vernon Carr is the state's ex-officio election expert who journalists and officials rely on for an explanation of the intricacies of the electoral process and statutes.
In addition to its election service, the company has also taken other highly technical printing jobs including printing bonds issued by municipalities, school districts and counties.
According to Lloyd Carr, the company has also specialized in school yearbook printing from its early days. The business has grown from printing Davis County yearbooks to over 1,400 schools throughout the United States and Canada this year.
The company also prints the north and south Davis directories. In a county arbitrarily divided and diluted with two metropolitan centers in other directories, the Davis directories are popular with residents and local advertisers. An innovation in the directories is the automatic inclusion of both the names of the husband and wife of a household.
Vernon Carr said he added the wife's names after he had difficulty locating names of city clerks he dealt with in his election business.
The directories also give information that the Carrs find essential. Residents have to go no further than the directory to find out about elections, a guide to names and addresses of state and federal representatives, explanation of the state's legislative processes and an earthquake preparedness guide. The directories also come with a full-size map of the county.