Delivering for four generations: Denver's Johnson Storage & moving started with horse-drawn wagons.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: COLORADO'S TOP 50 FAMILY-OWNED COMPANIES - Company overview

William Johnson and his family were enjoying a mid-day meal on New Year's Day, 1900, when they heard a strange noise outside on Second Avenue and Broadway. Hustling down from their second-story residence, William and his wife, his in-laws and their children dashed downstairs and outside to the street. [paragraph] The source of the commotion: two steam-powered automobiles, rumbling south down Broadway.

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"They all thought it was the neatest thing they'd ever seen," Mark Johnson says. "All except my great-grandfather. He was a blacksmith and wagon builder. It was two of his customers going by, and he knew his way of making a living was coming to an end."

William Johnson spent a pensive afternoon taking into account his abilities and his assets. He had the blacksmith shop on the first floor; he had horses; he knew how to build wagons. That evening he announced to the family he was launching a new business: a moving business, carrying baggage to and from Union Station.

That was the beginning of Johnson Storage & Moving Co., a fourth-generation family business now owned and operated by brothers Mark and Jim Johnson.

At 111 years old, Johnson Storage & Moving is the oldest firm on the ColoradoBiz Top 50 Family Owned Companies list and one of the largest, with 350 employees and annual revenues of about $30 million.

The family's impact on the moving industry transcends Johnson Moving & Storage, now headquartered in Centennial just off Arapahoe Road and Jordan Road. William Johnson also co-founded Allied Van Lines in 1928, and his sons--a great uncle and a grandfather of Mark and Jim--co-founded United Van Lines in 1947.

William Johnson's business initially consisted of three wagons that mostly carried steamer trunks to and from Denver's Union Station. Long-distance moves required crating everything in the customer's house, taking it by wagon to the rail station and loading it, and sending a telegraph to the destination alerting a mover on the other end.

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Today, Mark says, "We move things our ancestors never would have envisioned, much less tried to put on to a van or a wagon. Even in terms of certain mattresses that require special handling; if they're put on their side vs. kept flat, they're ruined. The fragile nature of plasma televisions. Items like that we have to respond to on a daily basis. And, of course, moving high-tech robotics, computer gear, imaging equipment, medical and dental equipment, those types of things."

But the Johnson brothers agree that the most significant change in recent decades has been deregulation of the moving industry--the Motor Carrier Act and the Household Goods Transportation Act. Both were enacted in 1980 and effectively ended 45 years of rate control.

"We were a public utility as an industry 30 years ago," says Mark Johnson, 54. "They deregulated us so we can now set our own pricing and tailor our services and pricing to much closer to what the consumer needs than would have been allowed 30 years ago."

The other effect of deregulation: "When I got into the business in 1979 there were probably 25 movers in the city of Denver," Mark says. "I think there are 120 to 150 that are in the industry in varying degrees now."

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