In memory of Jack Kirkham, Sr.
The inventor of the Springbar® tent, Arthur Jack Kirkham, passed away at his Utah home on June 15, 2008, just one day before his 90th birthday.
Jack Kirkham got into the outdoor equipment business in 1944, when he purchased AAA Tent and Awning Company in Salt Lake City upon returning from his military enlistment, where he served as a draftsman in the shipyards during World War II. With a post-war public eager for travel and outdoor recreation, Jack’s small retail and manufacturing business quickly thrived.
By nature a creative, independent thinker, during the 1950s Jack began experimenting with ways to improve the portable camping shelter that his outdoors-oriented customers relied upon. He valued, above all, simplicity—a quality he found lacking in the common tent designs of the day, which required too many complicated poles and ropes. In 1964, Jack was awarded a patent for his new “Springbar” tent, a simple but effective design that relied on only two upright poles for support and needed no tensioning ropes. This ingenious “self-guying” design was deceptively strong and wind-resistant, especially considering how easy it was to set up. The tents were an immediate success with his customers and the business grew to keep up with the increasing demand, expanding twice into new, larger facilities during the succeeding years.
Jack continued to invent and patent several outdoor-equipment designs, including the concept of the “modular” Springbar tent, a system of tent compartments, shade structures and accessories that could be flexibly attached to one another to accommodate different size families.
His dedication to his customers and employees resulted in a successful, sustainable family business that has few analogs in today’s marketplace for outdoor gear and apparel. Renamed Kirkham’s Outdoor Products, the store grew to be one of largest independent retailers of specialty camping and hiking equipment in the nation. Jack retired in 1990, passing ownership of the business to his son, Jack, Jr.
In his retirement, Jack continued to enjoy the outdoors near the family cabin in rural Utah, where he loved to ride horses, fish and pursue his lifelong avocation as an accomplished painter.
He will be remembered, not only by his surviving family, friends and former employees, but by thousands of customers for whom he strove to provide the “best possible service,” and by many more whose enjoyment of the outdoors was made a little better by having a Springbar tent in their camp.