PRESTON-Michael Lower has been involved in the salvage business his whole life and at 73 years-old he still keeps a sharp eye on what is going on his 10 acres of scrapped cars, metals and leftovers from area manufacturers.
Idaho Salvage & Metals has been in Preston since 1954 before that it was located at adjacent to the Bradford Mill Site in Franklin where it all started.
The Butterworth name is one that goes back to the founding of Franklin. Franklin is Idaho’s oldest settlement.
“My grandfather Leonard Butterworth started the salvage business in 1927,” Lower said as he drove around piles of separated metals to show off his operation. “We are now in our third generation.”
In the beginning they not only bought and sold scrap metal they were also bought and sold hides, furs, and coal in Franklin county. Nowadays they mostly deal in unused metals, wood and cardboard. The different metals are separated into piles.
“There is a pile for copper, a pile of brass, stainless steel and the aluminum is compacted into 25-pound cubes,” Lower said. “We used to separate everything by hand it was a tough business back then, but now we have four track hoes and six front end loaders of various sizes to separate things.”
The track hoes have different tools attached where the buckets were. Some have large magnets other have large jaws that resemble bolt cutters that cut or move large pieces of scrap.
“We have bins set out at area manufacturing facilities and they put their scrap in them,” he said. “Then we go pick it up.”
There are pieces of aluminum, steel come from Trails West Manufacturing. Trails West is a large livestock trailer manufacture located in Preston. The also have bins at the Franklin County Medical Center one of the largest employers in Franklin County and other places around the county.
When it comes to cars, they have some that people can get parts off of and some are crushed and taken with other steel pieces to NUCOR located in Plymouth, UT. Nucor melts the steel down and reproposes it.
“We drain all of the fluids out of the cars as an environmental precaution,” Lower said. “The state comes around periodically and checks to make sure we are working within their guidelines. I think they are happy with what we are doing.”
The salvage company also sells discarded pipe used in the oilfields that some people use for fencing livestock.
“We send out about five semi loads of one thing or another a week,” he said. ”We sell a lot of culverts. We sell culverts when the ground is dry and we sell a lot of them when it is wet. It makes no difference”
In 1954 Leonard and son in law, Paul Lower opened a second location six miles north in Preston and called it Idaho Junk today it is known as Idaho Salvage.
“My wife Dorothy and I keep the books,” Lower said. “We have six employees that have been with us for quite a while.”
Michael’s father Paul Lower worked full time job for the Union Pacific Railroad and part time with Leonard at the location in Preston. Paul retired from the railroad and ran Idaho Junk full time.
They bought and sold hides and furs until the early 90’s. Now Idaho Salvage & Metals mostly buys and sells metal.
Michael Lower, helped out after school and through the summers with a few hired men and relatives.
They learned young to work hard and do hard work.
Paul continued to work from dusk to dawn each day at the yard buying and selling until 1995 when he passed away. In 1989, After the death of his father Michael took over all duties of the business and later changed the name to Idaho Salvage & Metals.