Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

BURTON LUMBER COMPANY
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Right: Left to right, Jeff, Robert and Dan Burton.
Below: Entrance to Burton Lumber’s facility 1170 South 4400 West.
A fourth generation, family-owned lumberyard in which
fifth generation members are now taking an active part,
Burton Lumber Company has been helping build Utah
for over a century. Its seven locations and twelve divisions
from Logan to St. George provide lumber, hardware, doors,
trusses, installation and framing to professional contractors
throughout Utah.
The company was organized and chartered in August
1911. Soon afterward, Willard C. Burton became its president,
and his son, Carl C. Burton, secretary and treasurer. They
were joined by another of Willard’s sons, Alma G. Burton.
Ownership has remained in the Burton family and family
members have been controlling officers from that time
through the present.
Burton’s original lumberyard was built at the edge of the
farm acquired by Willard’s father, Robert T. Burton, after he
came into the valley as a pioneer. The original wood frame
store building burned in a nighttime fire in 1939, and was
replaced by a new lumber and hardware store that was
state-of-the-art for that time.
In the 1920s the Burtons acquired Midvale Lumber and
built another yard, which they named Native Lumber, on
South Main Street. From which they sold species of locally
grown lumber, including posts and pole logs for farm fencing
when farms were still prevalent in the Salt Lake valley.
The Midvale and Native yards were closed in 1968, and
the growth of Burton Lumber has been nothing short of
phenomenal since then. In 2003 the company moved its
headquarters into a 200,000 square foot facility on thirtytwo
acres of land near the Salt Lake City International
Airport, and also opened a number of other sites throughout
the state.
In the company’s early years, delivery was via horse and
wagon, and early financial statements listed horses and tack
under property plant and equipment, including a fine team
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