A bit of history

The Johnson family and original company owners photographed in the early 1900s. Back row: Oscar, Robert, Adolf, Emil, Eno. Front row: Ernest, Alfreda, Carl Alfred, Maria Sophia, Frederick.
In 1905 Carl Johnson and his wife Maria moved to Idaho From Illinois with their sons Robert, Oscar, Fred, Adolph, Ernest, Eno and Emil. Within a year they had established a family residential construction business and had purchased one of the young city’s two planing mills.
This purchase was key to their longevity and success. Soon the Johnson Brothers were transforming rough-sawn lumber delivered by horse-drawn wagons into doors, sashes, windows and casework for their own projects, and selling it to other contractors as well.
The tight-knit family learned the business from the ground up, and first employed their construction and woodworking skills by building residential homes for some of the 1,200 residents of Idaho Falls.
The Butte County Courthouse and the Masonic Temple in Arco were some of the company’s first marquee projects, which they undertook in 1916. Eno and his wife Lelah spent six months living in a tent on the desert. He managed and worked with the crew while she washed the workers’ laundry in a nearby creek and also cooked them three meals each day.
The company’s work on public and commercial buildings helped them survive the great depression. They were able to negotiate government contracts and also put up schools, churches, service stations, and even took on remodeling projects in downtown Idaho Falls businesses.
The 1970s saw the inception of a sales distribution division. Starting operations in a few hundred square feet of office space in the millwork building, demand necessitated a move to larger quarters a block south on Basalt Street. In 2000, a new 7,000 square-foot showroom was added next door.
Over time, they’ve honed their skills, upgraded their tools, and built a reputation solid enough to provide millwork to iconic building projects such as the Idaho Falls Civic Auditorium and the original Idaho Falls High School. Their work is in LDS Temples from California and Oregon to Colorado, the Jackson Hole Airport, Melaleuca headquarters, and countless banks, hospitals and dental offices throughout the Intermountain West.
These efforts built a bedrock business, becoming the cornerstone of specialty construction and millwork enterprise, with a focus on architectural detail.
In 2004, a fire decimated the moulding shop, claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory, equipment and structural loss. After only four months, the facility was once again operating at capacity.
In 2005, a sales and distribution center was established in Boise. Earlier this year, that center was moved to a larger location with a retail showroom/design center.
Currently, business continues to boom on both sides of the state.

Their roots are beneath their feet
In 1905, the entire mill was powered by a single water wheel on a drive shaft. This mechanism drove all of the equipment in the Johnson Brothers mill until 1914, when the drive shaft was moved to the company’s present shop location on Cliff Street and coupled with a 15-horsepower electric motor.
This configuration powered all of the shop’s woodworking equipment until the shop was upgraded in the early ’60s. The entire shaft is still outfitted with drive belts and accessible today, idled in a timbered basement beneath the company’s Cliff Street cabinet shop. It’s a tangible reminder of the company’s deep-seated roots in the region.
The new guard
Current ownership is largely held by the members of the Sargis family. Here’s how this transpired: Eno Johnson’s daughter, Bernice, married David Sargis Sr. in 1945. Three of their five children, David, E.J., and Lindsay, representing the fourth generation of family ownership, now hold stakes in the company. In 1970, Gene Johnson, the last of the namesake Johnson family line, passed away. The fifth generation has also begun their investment, with E.J.’s son, Chris Sargis, and David’s son-in-law, Zac Bodily rounding out the family team and taking the helm. Like their predecessors, the new leadership crew plans to continue the family tradition of balancing opportunity with excellence. “Our products and processes will continue to change with the times,” said Chris Sargis, “but our commitment to quality never will.”