Western saddles and rodeo chaps. Tony Lama boots and forge parts. If it has anything to do with horses, you can find it at one of Art's stores - the little one he opened (and expanded several times) at 3615 S. Redwood Road, and later at outlets he and his family opened in South Jordan and St. George.

And for much of that half-century, customers could hit up Callister personally for advice on most any horse issue.

"He always made it a point of trying to make the customer happy. They were his friends. He always had time to talk to people," his daughter, Mary Ann Day, said Friday amid preparations for her father's funeral at 11 a.m. today at the LDS Church's Monument Park 20th Ward.

Callister, 82, died Tuesday in Sandy of causes incident to age.

He went into business in 1952 with his father, Arthur Sr., opening a shop close to the family farm where he grew up learning to care for horses and livestock. After trading wool initially, Callister expanded the operation to include all kinds of horse supplies, clothing and feed. Gear filled the building from floor to ceiling.

"Where would we be without Callister's?" said Cindy Steel, who grew up in the Salt Lake Valley but now oversees the Color Country Paint Horse Club in St. George. "If you had a horse, that's where you went to shop . . . I spend a lot of money on horses. To me, going into [A. A. Callister's] was like being a kid in a candy store."

Added Jon Judd, a saddle maker and Utah Quarter Horse Association board member from Castle Dale: "Every time we went to Salt Lake, we went to Callister's. It started out as a necessity and became a habit . . . Callister's established a standard other [horse] stores were forced to match."

Another veteran horseman, Ken Cochrane of Sandy, found that going into the store was "like going into your own house, just comfortable" and that Callister "was like your dad. He'll leave a legacy of having a lot of people care about him."

Besides advice, he also was known as a generous contributor of money and goods whenever various horse groups had events or fund-raisers.

Callister's family was intimately involved in the business. Ned Callister now runs the South Jordan site while Day has the original West Valley City store. Her daughter, Mellissa Bryan represents the fourth generation of Callisters to work there.

Day said her father was a hard worker who "taught me a lot of things about life through the store."

He lived by a number of oft-quoted mottoes, such as "If it is to be, it's up to me," and "If you want something done, just get down there and do it."

Callister loved riding horses as well, particularly a palomino he named Lucky, participating in Palomino Posse Horse Club activities and taking his family on outings in the Uinta Mountains and the plateau above Fairview.

For his years of service to the horse industry, Callister was Grand Marshal of the Days of '47 Horse Parade in 1996.

Callister was preceded in death by his wife, Miriam Fitzgerald, and three children. He is survived by two sons, Ned and David, his daughter, Mary Ann, 13 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.