Springbar Tent Co.
Canvas Springbar tents cut and sewn by hand in Salt Lake City, Utah — a design Jack Kirkham invented in 1961 in a canvas shop his family had run since 1944
⚙️ American Manufacturing
Our assessment
Company details
Where Springbar Tent Co. products are made
Tents cut and sewn in Salt Lake City
Springbar product listings for its canvas tents state “Cut & sewn in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA,” and the company groups those items under a product category it labels Made in USA Canvas Tent. The 2019 move to West Temple is described as a renewed focus on Springbar tent manufacturing and design.
Eight decades of canvas work in one city
The company traces an unbroken line of canvas manufacturing in Salt Lake City back to 1944, through four addresses: 140 East 200 South, 24 West 500 South, 3125 South State Street, and now 4026 South West Temple. That is a trade kept in one place rather than a brand licensed to a contract sewer.
Some accessories are imported
Not everything Springbar sells is domestic. Accessory items such as the Deluxe Tent Bag carry the word Imported on the product page, and the company resells third-party camp goods alongside its own. Because a meaningful share of the catalogue outside the tents is imported, we use the American Manufacturing label rather than Made in USA.
Springbar Tent Co. publishes its founding years, its founder and its manufacturing location on its own site: canvas products cut and sewn in Salt Lake City since 1944, the Springbar tent since 1961, invented by Jack Kirkham Sr., with the current workshop at 4026 South West Temple. Tent product pages state “Cut & sewn in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.” We label Springbar American Manufacturing rather than Made in USA because the accessory and spare-parts side of the catalogue includes items the company itself marks Imported. The tents — the reason the company exists — are made in Utah by its own account.
The story
In 1944, after serving in Naval shipyards as a draftsman, Jack Kirkham Sr. came back to Salt Lake City and bought the AAA Tent & Awning Shop — 1,200 square feet at 140 East 200 South. He made tarps and awnings, covers for sheep camp wagons, horse blankets, teepees and wall tents for outfitters, herders and miners, and learned the canvas trade from the inside.
As Americans began camping for pleasure in the 1950s, Kirkham started building recreational tents, and he began to notice what was wrong with the frameworks of the day. In 1961, prompted in part by customers asking for something spacious, sturdy and easy to pitch, he invented the Springbar tent. The first 10×10 model — the tent that became the Traveler — listed at $83. Over the next decade the design was refined and patented, and it became the core product of the business.
By 1979 Kirkham had broken ground on a 26,000-square-foot building on State Street with room for both retail and factory, and the company was renamed Kirkham’s Outdoor Products — Home of the Springbar Tent. Through the 1980s and 1990s the retail side flourished: more than 200 brands, 10,000 items, fifty sales staff. Jack Jr., who had worked alongside his father from the age of fifteen, took over in the nineties. Jack Sr. died in 2008 at ninety.
Online competition eventually made the brick-and-mortar model untenable, but the following around the tent never faded. In 2019 the workshop moved to West Temple with a narrower purpose: build Springbar tents, adapt the business to the digital era, and keep making canvas tents by hand in Salt Lake City. Springbar Tent Co. describes it as a fresh start rooted in seventy years of tent-making.
Why they matter
Canvas tents are heavy, bulky and labour-intensive, which is precisely why almost nobody makes them domestically any more. The economics push production offshore, and most of the American camping market has followed. Springbar is one of the few operations that kept cutting and sewing in the same city for eight decades.
The design itself is the other reason the company matters. The springbar principle — flexible bars tensioning the canvas into a taut, self-supporting shape — was invented in Salt Lake City and patented there, and it is still what the tents are built around sixty-five years later. It is a genuine American product design, not a licensed silhouette.
Springbar Tent Co. is also honest about the parts of its catalogue that are not domestic, marking imported accessories as imported. That candour is worth as much to a buyer trying to spend deliberately as the domestic claim itself.
Shop Springbar Tent Co. products
Browse Springbar Tent Co. canvas tents and camp gear stocked on the Buy American Campaign store.
Shop all Springbar Tent Co. products → Visit Springbar Tent Co. website →
Frequently asked questions
Where are Springbar tents made?
In Salt Lake City, Utah. The company’s tent listings state “Cut & sewn in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA,” and its workshop is at 4026 South West Temple. It has made canvas goods in Salt Lake City since 1944.
When was the Springbar tent invented?
1961. Jack Kirkham Sr. invented it after customers asked for a tent that was spacious, sturdy and easy to pitch. The first 10×10 model — later called the Traveler — had a list price of $83.
Is everything Springbar sells made in the USA?
No. The tents are cut and sewn in Salt Lake City, but some accessories and spare parts are marked Imported on the product page, and the company also resells third-party camp goods. Read individual listings outside the tent line.
What was the company called before?
It began in 1944 as the AAA Tent & Awning Shop, was renamed Kirkham’s Outdoor Products — Home of the Springbar Tent in 1979, and now trades as Springbar Tent Co.