Building a better company

A lumberyard is the kind of place that ignites a kid's imagination.

Maybe it is the rich, heavy smell of freshly cut wood, or the long, pale lengths of boards waiting to be made into cabinets and doors and houses. Maybe it is the power tools and heavy equipment.

Whatever the allure of a lumberyard, it was more than enough to draw in Dan and Jeff Burton, who started working at their family's business, Burton Lumber, as young boys.

"We both started out at the end of a broom," Dan Burton said of his younger days sweeping the floors at the Salt Lake store.

Eventually, Jeff Burton said, they moved up to loading and driving delivery t.rucks.

Now the brothers are fourth-generation owners of Burton Lumber, a Salt Lake-based independent company that sells building materials to local commercial and residential contractors.

Apparently, the Burton brothers aren't tired of the place yet, as they bind themselves to its long history while moving Burton Lumber in new directions.

The company was founded in 1911 by their great-grandfather, Willard Burton, at 2220 S. State in Salt Lake City. At the time, the State Street location was on the outskirts of town, Dan Burton said, and "the old family farm was located there years and years ago."

Times have changed. That 2220 S. State location is now in the heart of the city, but for the first time in about 93 years, Burton Lumber isn't.

Late last month, the company started moving to a building at 1170 S. 4400 West. The new site eventually will include operations from several former Salt Lake locations, including the Burton door shop, truss plant, wall panel plant, showroom and corporate offices.

Dan Burton, 50, said the company has expanded a lot in the past 12 years, and "we had outgrown our facility on State Street. Plus, we wanted to move our manufacturing operations."

While Burton Lumber's other operations in St. George, Logan, Layton, Holladay and Lindon will remain in their current locations, the new headquarters is a big change for Dan and Jeff, 46.

"This building is 200,000 square feet," said Dan Burton, who serves as the company's president. "Our combined operations that we moved here probably totaled one-third of that. . . . It's a different feeling for us. We got to be good operators out of a small facility because we had to be. . . . There currently is nothing like this in Utah."

The new building is situated on 30 acres, giving plenty of room for outdoor storage and the rail spur on which 900 to 1,000 rail cars filled with lumber will arrive this year. The 12,000-square-foot showroom includes displays of everything from fireplaces and doors to hammers and work gloves. Loading docks are ready to handle the 150 or so deliveries made from the new building each day.