Many companies have a recipe for success, but Smith & Butterfield has sustained its winning formula for 160 years.
The provider of office supplies, furniture, technology products, printing, and more takes pride in offering many of the same services as big box retailers but with a personal touch. As a division of Champion Industries, Inc., and through its membership in American Office Products Distributors, Smith & Butterfield can provide what Division Manager Teri Barnes calls “desktop delivery.”
“There’s no reason for (a national retailer) to drop a 50-pound box of copy paper at your front door, and then your receptionist has to lift that,” Barnes says. “If you say, ‘I’d like that upstairs next to the copier,’ we put it where you want it. You’re not going to get that personal service from a national company shipping product to you via FedEx or UPS or even USPS, because they’ve got to get to the next delivery.”
Founded in 1866 by George C. Smith, the company first called Young American News Depot changed its name in 1882 when book and stationery salesman A.S. Butterfield joined. It was solely owned by Butterfield’s family after Smith’s death in 1922. It joined the Champion Industries family in 1996.
Area companies of all sizes appreciate Smith & Butterfield’s personal approach. It has supplied Deaconess Health System, Evansville Regional Airport’s administrative office, automotive supplier Diversity Vuteq, real estate agency F.C. Tucker Emge, Posey County manufacturer BWX Technologies, Inc., Lochmueller Group, Bowen, Evansville Christian School, and more.
Soon after Champion acquired Smith & Butterfield, Barnes transferred from West Virginia to Evansville, fell in love with the city, and stayed. Her mentor has been Jim Butterfield, the family’s fourth-generation owner.
Smith & Butterfield employs only nine people at its Lynch Road location, but Barnes says its community impact is large. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it donated masks and hand sanitizer and made those items more readily available to the Evansville Police Department, Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office, city offices, and schools by lumping them in with other purchase orders.
“We never had a single day off during the whole pandemic because we were providing personal protective equipment to local businesses so that they could keep going,” Barnes says. The company’s community participation includes the Granted House of Hope that opened in June.
As one of the city’s oldest continuously operating businesses, Smith & Butterfield’s 160-year milestone “honors everyone who helped build Smith & Butterfield before us, while reminding our team of the responsibility we have to keep evolving, keep serving, and showing up for our customers,” Barnes says.
