The Company was first recognized as a leader in the design, production and marketing of stock line calendars featuring recognized calendar artists. The importance of custom designed calendars grew until they became the primary focus of the Company. The Company then was recognized as the leader in that market-niche. In addition, the Company offered custom lithography and fulfilment services to selected clients.
The U.O. Colson Company was founded in 1892 in Paris, Illinois by Usher Osborn Colson and his wife, Ada. The Company started by printing and distributing grain sack identification tags which was a precursor advertising speciality item. Local area banks paid for the tags and were delivered free of charge to the grain milling industry by the Company. The tags were printed by the Company on one side with an advertisement for a bank and/or local businesses and blank on the other side for the miller to mark the contents and weight of the bag. The Company prospered and, around the turn of the century, briefly specialized in the printing of menus for restaurants. The Company was noted for being one of the first, if not the first in its area, to print color reproductions of food items on menus.
In the nineteen tens, the Company started to produce a broad spectrum of advertising specialty items. Later, in the very early thirties, the company again changed its focus and eventually became a leader in the production, sales and distribution of stock line calendars as well as custom calendars, fans and other advertising specialty items to businesses throughout the United States. Arrangements were made with all of the recognized calendar artists of the period to reproduce their work on a wide variety of calendars.
In 1976, the Osborn-Kemper-Thomas Company of Wilmington, Ohio and U. O. Colson Company were combined into a single operating entity named OKT/Colson Company. In 1977, the Company consolidated operations in Paris, Illinois. Also in 1977, the Company again changed its marketing direction to fully concentrate on the custom calendar market by discontinuing stock line calendars and advertising specialties. Custom calendars, as compared to stock line calendars, are designed and published exclusively for a proprietary client and sold by direct mail to the clients' dealer, agent or broker network. During this phase the Company became the leader in the national and international sales of custom designed calendars.
In 1982, the OKT/Colson business changed its name and operating style to The Colson Company.
In 1992, The Colson Company sold its book of business and its name to a United States division of an international printer and calendar manufacturer. The Company then concluded the production of orders for 1993 and 1994 calendars to focus exclusively on the marketing of speciality products.
The Colson Company thus enjoys positive identification as an on-going business entity since 1892.
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