Utah Printers Hall of Fame

The inaugural group or players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 was the greatest class in the Hall's history. Ty Cobb. Babe Ruth. Honus Wagner. Christy Mathewson. Walter Johnson. The inaugural class of the Utah Printers Hall of Fame will be inducted Tuesday and includes a similar lineup of heavy hitters from the state's printing history. The class consists of LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson and six others:

James Dunn

(1837-1923)

Publisher, Tooele Transcript

Dunn began working for a newspaper in his native Scotland at the age of 10, setting type and writing poetry and stories. As captain of the Tooele Company of the Nauvoo Legion, he crossed the plains five times in nine years, bringing Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. He bought the Transcript in 1897 with a down payment of $10, money he borrowed from a local businessman. That decision launched a family dynasty now in its fourth generation.

James H. Wallis

(1861-1940)

Publisher, Vernal Express

Apprenticed to learn the art of printing in England at age 12, Wallis was the pressman at the LDS Church's printing facility in Liverpool when the Millennial Star, a Latter-day Saint publication, reported the death of Brigham Young in 1877. In the United States, he worked for, edited or published newspapers in 22 different cities in Idaho and Utah, the last one the Vernal Express, which he acquired in 1917. Family ownership of the Express continued for four generations.

Brigham Hamilton Young

(1824-1898)

Utah's first printer

B.H. Young became the first person to use movable type and a crude, homemade press when he printed 50-cent notes on Jan. 23, 1849. Young unloaded and assembled the Ramage Press that arrived via wagon train in Salt Lake City in August 1849. He produced the first printed sheet in Utah history. The nephew of then-LDS Church President Brigham Young also set the type and printed the first edition of the Deseret News on June 15, 1850.

Roy T. Porte

(1876-1937)

Creator, Franklin Price List

Porte founded the world-famous Franklin Price List, which helped printers set price estimates for different types of printing. The government required printers to use the catalog's prices during the Great Depression so they wouldn't underbid each other. Porte had a small job press at 12, worked full time as a printer at 14 and was known as the "boy editor of Hunter," North Dakota, where he founded and edited the Hunter Herald. He launched the Franklin Price List in Utah.

Loren L. Taylor

(1892-1972)