Ennis, Inc. History

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The Company Description of Its Time

Ennis has the best founding story in this letter, told in one sentence: with one press salvaged from a fire that destroyed The Ennis Daily News, Garner Dunkerley, Sr. started what is today the largest wholesale printing manufacturer in the nation; Ennis, Inc. The year was 1909, and with Ennis, Texas located in the heart of the central Texas cotton region, cotton tags became the primary business of the new company. A fashion directory includes Ennis for two reasons that unfold across this profile: it began by printing the tags the cotton and garment trade needed, and a century later it bought its way into apparel itself. Today, the filing says, Ennis consists of two distinct groups: Printing and Apparel.

From Cotton Tags to Business Forms: 1909 to the 1960s

By the 1930's company management saw the growth in business forms, and in 1937 the newspaper portion of the company was sold to finance expansion into forms production. By the 1940's, the company, now known as Ennis Tag and Salesbook Company, began to concentrate on expanding its business forms line, committing to the distributor market - customers living and working in the communities they served, with close contact to the consumer. During the 1950's the line expanded to unit sets, register forms and continuous forms, making Ennis a one-source supplier for that market. The plant map then spreads: a second major plant in Chatham, VA in 1949 to serve the eastern United States, a third in Paso Robles, CA in 1956 for the western market, and a snap-a-part plant in DeWitt, Iowa in 1967.

Those plant openings paved the way, the filing says, for a period of acquisition beginning in 1967: during the next four years Ennis acquired plants in Portland, OR; Ft. Scott, KS; Wolfe City, TX; and Knoxville, TN, offering customers better service, more versatile product lines and closer proximity to regional markets. During the 1970's, single product plants were added in Moultrie, GA and Coshocton, OH, providing flexibility and production efficiencies. The pattern is consistent across sixty years - capacity bought or built near the customer, sold through local distributors - and it is the same pattern the apparel business would later follow.

Admore, Alstyle and the Two-Group Company

The acquisition of Admore in Macomb, MI in 1991 began a new surge of acquisition activity, the filing records: from the nineties to today Ennis has grown into new product lines and markets with the acquisitions of industry leaders like Adams McClure, Northstar, General Financial Supply, Calibrated Forms, Block Graphics and Trade Envelopes. Then the step that brings Ennis into a fashion directory's company pages: in 2004, Ennis expanded its product offering with the acquisition of Alstyle Apparel, an Anaheim based apparel manufacturer, doubling the size of the company to more than $500 million in revenue.

The filing closes with the distributor promise intact: their large and diversified product offering makes Ennis a great partner for distributors, and the company's own sign-off - as customers present new opportunities, Ennis is well positioned for the challenges ahead, and in the future, as in the past, will continue to be your 'Partner to Grow With.' The routes lead to the Alstyle Apparel profile, the corporate apparel page, and back to the E letter hub. For current product lines and distributor information, the official Ennis and Alstyle sites in the References are the authorities; this profile keeps the record as recorded, from one salvaged press to two business groups.

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