HENEFER -- The road to lasting memories for many Americans goes squarely through this rural Summit County community.

It's hardly what one might expect to find in a setting where the number of animals more than triples the population of 684 people. The community's only retail business is called Grumps and the mayor, who owns that business, muses there is so little traffic that you can sleep in the middle of the road during the winter and only have to move two or three times.

Amid a pastoral setting fit for sheep and cows, Kiddie Kandids, a national photo chain with offices in 28 states, has a photo lab that does the fine detail work for all of its customers in the United States. The lab is world class and has embraced the changing world of digital photography into a working niche.

The lab operates a state-of-the-art facility that produces and ships more than 1 million products across the nation annually. It supports approximately 179 studios across a swath of the U.S. that extends from Washington State to Maine. There are 11 Kiddie Kandids locations in Utah, including studios in Layton and Ogden.

With 43 employees, the lab qualifies as the biggest business in this small community.

That number is expected to balloon to 58 during the holiday season, with the extra strain brought on by the gift-giving season. Matt Birch, public relations manager for Kiddie Kandids, says the business draws most of its employees from Ogden and Morgan.

The business now operates in a 14,000-square-foot facility with several million dollars worth of electronic printers and equipment that can put a photograph on almost any kind of product.

Like its name suggests, Kiddie Kandids are studios designed to capture the magic of childhood on photo paper, and many other products.

Birch said the Summit County lab handles all pictures larger than 8 by 10 inches and also handles the unique novelties associated with photos ranging from engraved portrait key chains, Christmas keepsake ornaments, limited-edition collector plates, hand-painted fine art products of watercolor portraits or on oil canvas, portrait mugs, portrait mouse pads and specialized tiles or baseballs, with photos that last.

This holiday alone, Ty Rausch, who manages the lab, estimates the studio will produce 30,000 specialized Christmas ornaments.

Since everything they do deals with a digital format, the lab is able to access photos from all of Kiddie Kandids 179 locations electronically, and then convert those electronic images into a tangible form, ready to be shipped out. The lab gets the digital images within seconds of when customers make their selections at different studios throughout the U.S.

The link to Henefer originates with Wayne Fox, one of the co-founders of Kiddie Kandids. Fox opened a photography studio in the community in 1976. From his small facility, he began to produce images that caught the attention of other professionals, including Scott Adams. A few years later, Adams and Fox merged their business interests to form the studios and lab, which have since grown.

Adams and Fox brought different talents to the table, according to Rausch, and have stayed at the front of the new wave of technology, especially the digital age.

He said the company started to focus on being digital in 1995 and integrated quickly with the change from negatives to digital images. The last negative seen at that lab was in 2001, according to Rausch.

"Some of our competitors still struggle with that," Rausch said of making the switch.

Originally the lab handled school portraits, but in 1987 all of the company's printing was moved to the Henefer lab. The company handled school portraits until 2001, when that portion of the business was sold.

Rausch said the work done at the lab attracted the attention of Kodak from Rochester and he said it was not unusual to have the visitors from the photo giant visit Henefer and their cramped operation in a small white house. The lab was moved to its current location in 1998.

Rausch describes Fox as someone always interested in the latest gadgets or devices involving photography. That passion is the spark behind the lab's development and the growing niche of Kiddie Kandids.

That passion has been coupled with Fox's ability to integrate software into photo processing. The lab is unique enough that they print their own backgrounds for use in the 179 studios throughout the country, as well as their own promotional materials.

The images coming from the lab extend beyond the objects with photographs.

Mayor Randy Ovard attributed the growth of the business to the genius of Fox, who he said displayed an unusual talent for photography, even while working at framing houses. He muses that he has seen executives from the East beat a path to his community as a result.

"I recall standing here in the store with five people from Kodak who came into Henefer from back east. Wayne Fox had put together software for computers that even Kodak was impressed with," Ovard said.

Nowhere is the company's growth more noticeable than at the post office. As Kiddie Kandids grew, so did the volume of its packages. It got so bad that Christine Charlesworth, postmaster, used to fill up the working room at the small post office and then have bins full of packages outside that she had to process.

Still the business is a source of pride for Charlesworth.

Fearing a potential loss of the post office business, Charlesworth helped convince officials to make a regular pickup at the lab. It helped keep the United States Postal Service in the delivery mix, and garnered a Pride Certified award for Charlesworth, the highest honor of its kind for a post office the size of Henefer.

"It's the biggest part of my business," Charlesworth said of the lab's volume.

Rausch keeps the business's growth in perspective. He notes the land behind the lab is full of horses and other animals. He even delights in talking about some employees coming to work on four-wheelers.

"It's possible that some may have even come on horses," Rausch muses.