Steve Pratt's reputation was as a wagon builder. New wagons with wooden spokes and canvas tops from old, old plans. Among other things, he made handcarts from his workshop near his home in Cove Fort.
He knew little about printing presses at the time, only that they were responsible for the newspaper he had delivered daily.A craftsman of note, a number of years ago he was asked if he might be able to reproduce a replica of a Peter Smith Acorn Press, the one used to print the first Book of Mormon.
He could, he said, and he did. It was an exct replica, right down to the nicks and chips in the frame. He started the press with help from his son, Ben, then put the project on hold for a couple of years while his son completed an LDS mission. On his return, father and son resumed their work and completed the press.
That began what has now become a full-time job for Pratt. He recently completed his fifth reproduction. He is working on his sixth and has backorders for more reproductions.
His latest effort is an exact replica of the press that printed the first Deseret News back in 1850 - an Adam Ramage Press.
After he started working on reproducing his first old press, Pratt said, he got so enthused that "I decided to go see for myself some of the old presses. I bought a ticket to L.A. and went to the International Printing Museum."
He also began visiting libraries and reading as much as he could about the old-time printing machines.
His presses are so exact that parts from the reproduction can be interchanged with the original press with no hint of any difference in operation.
"I use common sense, though, when I build the presses. Some of the scratches and hammer marks come out in casting, and I could reproduce these things if I wanted to go to all the trouble, but I don't. There's no reason, really, because they really don't add much to the press," he said.
The Pratts have also worked on two Ben Franklin Presses. One went to Texas A&M, and the second to a printing museum in Provo.
His fourth press was an antique table model of a Proof Press for printing little books.
The first Adam Ramage Press the Pratts reproduced for the Deseret News will be placed on display in the foyer on the fourth floor of the new Deseret News building.
The press is a working model, and there are plans to do some actual printing, for demonstration purposes, with the replica. Pratt has also been commissioned to build a second model of the press. This one will go in one of the buildings at This Is the Place State Park.
He says he has also been contacted about doing another Ramage Press, "This one dating back a little further than the one for the Deseret News. This one will have some wooden parts, and the printing was done on a polished marble plate. The Deseret News press is all iron and printed on a cast-iron surface. Both were engineered by the same company. Both were very famous presses in early America."
He points out that the press used what was called "moveable" type. This type of printing proved to be one of the greatest advancements in printing.
Pratt said his studies have shown that only a handful of people had books before the introduction of the printing system. In the years that followed, milions of books were printed and made available.
The next big development in the printing was the invention of the linotype machines, through which whole lines could be stamped out instead of single letters.
The Deseret News installed the first linotype machines in 1897.
He said building the replica of the Deseret News press went smoothly. Exactly how many hours he put into the job, he isn't sure.
He did find a few parts on the original press that were damaged or broken. He either fixed those or rebuilt the parts so that the original press would also be workable.
"Before I started rebuilding presses, I'd never seen an antique press before. Now I can't get enough information about the old presses. I can tell you this, now, and that is that the Deseret News press was well engineered . . . very well engineered.