Durfey, city have thrived

AMERICAN FORK — B. Kay Hutchings spends most of his time these days getting his hands dirty tinkering with old cars.

Because he's dressed in dusty clothes, with the telltale traces of his hobby beneath his fingernails, it may come as a surprise to learn he's made his living cleaning things.

But not only does Hutchings own one of the oldest dry cleaning stores in the state, but a taste for cleanliness must run in the family because the store's management is in its third generation.

Durfey Dry Cleaners & Shirt Laundry, 266 W. Main, celebrates its 60th anniversary this year — six decades of business tied to the city's history.

In fact, the store, which is among the stalwarts on Main Street, has two former American Fork mayors in its lineage. Founder Haws Durfey served in the late '60s, and his son-in-law, Hutchings, was in office from 1990 to 1994.

Before running for mayor, though, Durfey started a small route to pick up soiled clothes, and that eventually grew into a large business with branch locations in Salt Lake City, Provo, Pleasant Grove and Kearns. Today, only the stores in American Fork and Provo remain in the family.

Durfey started the business on a whim, said Hutchings.

"He was working at Geneva Steel, and he took his suit to (a local cleaners), and they told him it would take them two weeks to clean the suit, they were so busy," Hutchings said. "He thought it would be a good business to be in."

Durfey went to Capitol Cleaners in Salt Lake City, and the owners agreed to pay him 35 percent of the profits made off clothes he picked up and delivered to the store. He then sold his car, bought a sedan delivery truck, painted his name on the side and headed to Bluffdale and Riverton in the hopes of finding prospective customers.

"The first day he brought in $11 and only got 35 percent of that," Hutchings said. "He (told me later), 'I was a sick man.' And he went from that to the biggest dry cleaners in the state at one time."

At its peak, the business had 10 delivery vans that picked up dirty garments and dropped off clean ones six days a week.

"At one time, on Redwood Road, every house from Bluffdale to about 7800 South had a customer in it," Hutchings said.

And many of the store's customers remain loyal today, said Kay Hutchings' son.