Changes for oldest businesses

Pharmacy, Gallatin Publishing moving soon to different locations

Major changes involving the two oldest businesses in Gallatin are about to unfold. Both businesses will soon be leaving storefronts on the town square.
Gallatin’s oldest continuously operated business, D.H. Davis Drug Company, is being purchased by Pamida. The pharmacy is being relocated inside Pamida’s Gallatin store. Although no official announcement has been issued, remodeling inside Pamida is underway.
An early September opening is anticipated. More specific details about this ownership change are expected to be publicly announced by Pamida officials soon.
Change is also underway for Gallatin’s second oldest business. Gallatin Publishing Company (GPC), owned by Darryl and Elizabeth Wilkinson, will relocate its printing plant and business offices into the middle section of the county-owned building commonly known as the cap factory at 609 South Main Street, behind the Daviess County Health Department.
The relocation is to be completed by this fall.
GPC will be expanding its services at the new facility to include a photography studio operated by Jill Steward, the Wilk- insons’ daughter, who currently manages the Chillicothe office of The Ad Pages shopper for GPC. The photography studio will operate as TheJpeg.com.
More details about photo services will be announced later this fall.
During this past spring GPC was awarded the bid for the purchase of a newspaper printing press at the University of Missouri-Columbia. This press was used by the School of Journalism to publish the Columbia Missourian on campus until the university recently began contracting their printing services elsewhere. The press was declared surplus property and offered for sale by sealed bid.
This offset press is a 6-unit News King model, the same manufacturer of the printing press used by GPC since the 1960s. Significant upgrades were completed in 1993. Obtaining this press offered an opportunity for GPC to significantly upgrade its printing capabilities.
“We will soon be offering full color newsprint printing to our list of publisher clients,” says GPC President Darryl Wilkin- son. “But more importantly, by adding two units from our current press onto the six units we’re moving to Gallatin from Columbia, we can produce newspaper sections with greater page counts in less time than before.”
Press needs more space
The size of the press with its roll stands — roughly six feet wide by 68 feet long — forces the publishing company to seek a larger facility. Initially, GPC considered various options to build a new building. But eventually, leasing 12,000 square feet in the old cap factory made the most economic sense.
A 10-year lease agreement, with an option to continue for a second 10-year term, was signed by the Daviess County Commission and Gallatin Publishing Company on July 1. The county retains ownership of the building. The eastern portion of the building will continue to be used for county storage.
“This more than doubles the space we currently have for our business purposes,” says Wilk- inson.
“Besides housing a bigger and better press, we have significantly increased the storage area for newsprint. We hope to realize some savings in managing our newsprint inventory rather than being restricted to paper purchases only as space in our current warehouse allows.”
Several local businesses are involved in GPC’s relocation project. Financing has been arranged through Farmers Bank of Northern Missouri.
Kyle McBroom of Gallatin is handling installation of completely new electrical service, and new heating and cooling units. Remodeling for business office space is being done by Ken Waln of Winston, who owns and operates Cover Masters. Materials will arrive from Gallatin Lumber Company.
The City of Gallatin will be bringing in a new 480 3-phase electric entrance dedicated to service the printing press. D&R Construction of Winston will trench a new sewer service hookup. A new business entry on the building’s south side is a part of the project.
The press will be moved to Gallatin by a specialist, Harold Tatum of Joplin. Mr. Tatum is familiar with this particular press, having performed upgrades on it previously. An arrangement has been made for an 18-wheeler from Kenny Critten at Landmark Manufacturing to transport the press.
“This is a rather small venture in the ways of the business world today, but it’s a big change for us,” Wilkinson says.
“We’re grateful to have so many good people able and willing to help make our relocation possible — including our county commissioners. We might have withdrawn our bid on the press or looked to locate our printing plant elsewhere if not for the opportunity presented by this lease.”
Gallatin Publishing Company employs 19 people full time with office facilities at both Gallatin and Chillicothe. The firm also employs a number of part-time workers in the mail room and for deliveries.
Plans are to complete the relocation without interruption of services or product. Besides printing its own weekly Gallatin North Missourian, GPC prints seven other newspapers each week.
The printing plant also produces two editions of its own Ad Pages, a shopper distributed in a 4-county region, as well as two other free distribution shoppers each week for other owners. Numerous additional publications, such as monthly newspapers for Lake Viking  and Lake Quiviria, and other commercial printing products are also regularly produced.
Internet impacts business
Internet services and web site development is a growing part of GPC’s business that is significantly impacting the company’s future in a positive way. Monthly real estate papers are now distributed in four distinctly defined regions to promote GPC’s regional internet portals.
Nearly 60,000 copies of these real estate editions are monthly distributed from Council Bluffs and Des Moines to Kansas City and along I-70 to St. Louis as well as southward into the Ozarks — and at selected locations throughout all the rural regions between these urban anchors.
Printing and distributing real estate newspapers to promote viewership online for real estate professionals continues to grow.   ShoMeMoreRealEstate.com now attracts more than 4.2 million hits per month with over 5,000 people using the web site each day.
“Eight years of hard work and development are beginning to pay off,” the Wilkinsons say. “We’re really not interested in trying to become something we’re not. But times are changing, and this relocation allows us some much needed space and flexibility.”
“Publishing the Gallatin newspaper to serve Daviess County will continue to be a priority for us. A larger, faster printing press should allow us to not only improve this product but also the variety of products we print for the list of publishers we serve.”
The relocation means that Gallatin’s newspaper office will be somewhere else besides North Main Street for the first time in many decades. Once the present business offices and printing plant are vacated this fall, decisions will be made as to the current building’s future.