Since 1890
135 years of canvas.
Handmade canvas tents, awnings, and shelter goods, cut, sewn, and inspected in Denver since 1890. This is a manufacturing story. It is still being written.
How it started
The Denver Tent and Awning Company opened on Larimer Street in 1890. Denver was a boomtown then: miners, ranchers, railroad crews, and military posts, all of them needing canvas. The shop cut and sewed for whoever walked through the door.
Nine years later, Robert S. Gutshall founded The Colorado Tent & Awning Company a few blocks away on Lawrence Street. The two shops operated as separate Denver manufacturers: competitors, neighbors, and eventually, after decades of expansion and acquisitions, one company.
By 1907, the catalog carried the tagline that still hangs on the wall of the Denver shop: "The Largest Duck Goods House in the West." It was a working promise: wall tents, range tents, military goods, awnings, custom canvas, anything that could be cut from a bolt and sewn by hand. We are still earning it.
135 years in motion
Founded in Denver in 1890. Still in Denver in 2026. The shop has outlasted two world wars, the Great Depression, and the rise of cheap synthetic gear. Here is how we got here.
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1890
Founded
The Denver Tent and Awning Company opens on Larimer Street. The city is booming. It needs canvas.
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1899
Founded
The Colorado Tent and Awning Company opens on Lawrence Street.
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1907
Catalog No. 8
"The Largest Duck Goods House in the West." The tagline still hangs in the shop.
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1950s
Peak Production
Sewing floor running full-time on military, hunting, scouting, and ranching contracts.
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2003
Merger
Colorado Tent and Denver Tent join forces in 2003. The combination brings together event tents and consumer tents under one roof.
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2022
New Ownership
Harlan and Karah Hummer acquire the company. The team stays. The standards stay.
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Today
Still Here
Every tent cut, sewn, and inspected at 10975 E. 55th Ave. 3-5 week lead time.
Sewn by hand.
Built to repair.
Every tent is cut and sewn by people who have spent careers on a single skill. Tim Perez has been measuring and cutting canvas for over thirty years. Every piece passes through his hands before it reaches the sewing floor. Lydia, Maria, Loyda, and Fabiola bring more than eighty years of combined large-textile sewing experience between them.
The canvas is 10.10 oz Sunforger® marine-grade cotton duck. When it gets wet, the fibers swell and the weave tightens. The tent gets more waterproof, not less. The construction is the same as it was a hundred years ago: double-stitched seams, brass hardware, sewn-in stove jacks where you ask for them, repair patches you can sew on yourself. Nothing is glued. Nothing is sealed in a way that prevents fixing it later.
- Repair, don't replace.
- Lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects.
- 100% made in Denver, Colorado.
- Same materials and methods since the 1900s.
What we stand for
The shop has been here for 135 years because the people working in it have refused to cut corners. These are the principles that have kept it that way.
Tradition
Methods proven across 135 years of canvas. The same patterns, materials, and standards that have held up in the field for generations.
Self-Reliance
Gear that works when no one is coming to help. Built for the people who already know that.
Repair, Don't Replace
Made to last. Designed to be fixed. A lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects.
Respect
For the land you carry it onto. For the people who built it. For the people you hand it down to.
Work with us
Built one tent at a time.
Every tent is made at the Denver shop. Limited inventory of tents available. Stock and custom builds welcome. Current lead time is 3-6 weeks.