If you’re looking for a Utah-made gift for the holiday season, you have plenty of choices, from handmade to homegrown.
Utah is an entrepreneurial state, so we don’t lack small, local businesses or individual makers—a positive all year round, but especially ahead of the holidays.
For example, Craft Lake City organizes multiple events throughout the year, including its Holiday Market, which happens this year on Dec. 12 and 13 at the Mountain American Expo in Sandy. There are also shops that exclusively carry local goods, including items from indie makers and products from Utah-based companies. The Hive Market in Trolley Square tilts more toward the artisan side, while Salt & Honey Market carries Utah-themed and Utah-made gifts, but the list goes on and on.
Here are seven ideas for locally made gifts to get you started.
1. Springbar canvas Camp Totes
Cost: $34.95
Find it: Online, or at Springbar’s Retail Store & Tent Garden, 4026 S. West Temple, Millcreek, UT 84107
Springbar Tents, which Outsider Magazine called “the Airstream of tents” for their old-school quality and design, have been made in Salt Lake since 1961 when founder Jack Kirkham bought the AAA Tent & Awning Shop and designed his first signature tent. Formerly known as Kirkham’s, the company renamed itself but kept the high-quality canvas tents Kirkham engineered in the early ’60s, and it still makes everything in its Millcreek factory. Springbar also makes canvas goods in its workshop, including canvas ball caps, overnight bags, and camp totes, which are cut and sewn by hand and made with the same durable canvas used for its tents.
2. Taffy Town Salt Water Taffy
Cost: $8.99 per box
Find it: Online, at local gourmet food shops, and at the Taffy Town Factory Store, 9813 S Prosperity Rd, West Jordan, UT 84081
The origins of salt water taffy are tied to Atlantic City, but that didn’t stop Utahns from somehow making it their own by linking it mythologically to the Great Salt Lake. Founded in 1916 and originally called Glade Candy Co., Taffy Town changed its name and its approach in the ‘90s, jettisoning all products except its taffy, which is whipped rather than pulled. The result, as Taffy Town notes on its site, is “a fluffy taffy that’s easy to eat without leaving bits of candy stuck in between your teeth.” It makes 90 flavors, including Fruity Breakfast Cereal, Rocket Pop, Glazed Donut, and of course, Dirty Soda. You can even choose your own flavors to build a custom taffy gift box for $22.
3. Eco-friendly bath goods from Salt City Soapworks
Cost: $15 and up
Find them: Online, and in area stores
In 2021, Utah geophysicist Lauren Tyson decided to make a career change and launched Salt City Soapworks, a sustainable soap company that uses Utah Redmond salt and regionally acquired beeswax, specifically wax cappings, a leftover product after honey is harvested. It also makes beeswax lip and body balms in eco-friendly cardboard tubes, bath bombs and bath salts, salt scrubs, bar shampoos, and, of course, its signature offering, salt soap. The soaps are made with coconut oil and unrefined Utah salt and come in a variety of scents, including clove and coffee, orange and bee pollen, lemongrass, and cedarwood. Salt City even makes a line of fun kids’ soaps shaped like animals, which are tinted with colored kaolin clays instead of chemicals.
4. Artisan pens from Allywood Creations
Cost: $100–$140
Find them: Online, and at Made in Park City, 6541 N Landmark Dr, Park City, UT 84098
Every pen is made by artist Alex Pearl, who was born with Fanconi Anemia (FA), a genetic bone marrow disorder. Pearl has undergone a bone marrow transplant and multiple surgeries, including on her hands. After being told by her doctors that she would never be able to fasten buttons or tie her shoes, she proved them wrong and began making artisan pens. Patients with FA have an average life expectancy of 33, so Pearl, at 27, has dedicated herself to her art and does it full-time. She knew what she wanted to do from an early age, though: she tackled her first woodworking project at age six, and continued with woodshop through junior high and high school (“with hopes for a date to Prom being the only girl in the class!” she jokes). Pearl works with hardwoods, acrylic, and even antlers, and offers 30 different styles, which can be finished in hundreds of ways.
5. Gift baskets from Everything Utah Shop
Cost: $24 and up
Find it: Online and at the Everything Utah Shop, 311 S State St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Founded by Utah transplant Mary Lindsey in 2017, the name of the store is no idle boast—it does feel like it offers “Everything Utah.” At its brick-and-mortar shop, located in downtown Salt Lake, you’ll find polished rocks, jewelry, ball caps, mugs, soaps, candy, preserved goods, toys, posters, honey, clothing, and more. Some of the goods are Utah-inspired rather than Utah-made, but the shop does offer gift baskets filled to the brim with Utah goods. And there are options at all price points, from the affordable Cozy Cup (local honey straws in a locally designed mug, which comes with a matching coaster) to the Utah Food Basket, which is filled with saltwater taffy, honeycorn, local caramels, salsa and hot sauce, honey sticks, local jams, Redmond salt, Utah mint and toffee truffles. If you’re looking for a white elephant gift, don’t miss the $20 mystery bags, which are filled with little items like hats, jewelry, travel mugs and more.
6. Books from Torrey House Press
Cost: $21 and up
Find them: Online, and at independent Utah bookstores
Torrey House Press is best known for environmental nonfiction by writers like Craig Childs, Linda Hogan, and Pam Houston, but it made national news this fall when “Stitched,” a novel about two gay men who join a ladies’ quilting circle in Ogden, Utah, made the New York Times Bestseller list. This tiny Salt Lake-based press also took home a National Book Award this year for the Indigenous feminist and futurist anthology “Beyond the Glittering World.” (Not bad for a regional nonprofit publisher that’s less than 20 years old and puts out 10 to 12 titles a year.) New titles for fall and winter include Houston’s “Animals Taught Me Everything”; “Great Sand Dunes Massacre,” the latest from mystery writer Scott Graham; and “This Haunted Land,” by Betsy Gaines Quammen, which looks at American history through the lens of the ghost story.
7. Novelty gifts from Loftus International
Cost: $5 and up
Find them: At quirky local shops
One of Utah’s most underrated exports is the Latex rubber chicken—yes, it was invented here!—but let’s not forget the exploding golf balls, hand buzzers, and re-lighting birthday candles. Loftus International began as a tiny magic shop in downtown Salt Lake in 1939, and by the 1990s, had expanded into an international manufacturing company. Its main bread-and-butter is party balloons and Halloween costumes, but it hasn’t given up on the prankstery stuff that made it a legend, from exploding gum to bug ice cubes. If you are looking for silly gifts for your favorite Weisenheimer, look no further. You can find their novelty items on Walmart’s website, but you’re reading a Utah-made gifts story, so we will assume you’d rather patronize local independent shops like like Cabin Fever (552 S 602 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84103, in Trolley Square), Cahoots (878 E 900th S, Salt Lake City, UT 84105), Fun Store (3370 S State St #2, South Salt Lake, UT 84115), and Pirate O’s (11901 S 700 E, Draper, UT 84020), all of which all carry Loftus novelties.
