1 / 2

"This is kinda a lost art," said Gary Turner (cq) as he tightens leather on horse tack on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at his home in Lehi. He has been braiding leather and rawhide for almost 40 years and recently won the Best in Show at the Utah State Fair for his leather work. ASHLEY FRANSCELL/Daily Herald

Ashley Franscell

2 / 2

Gary Turner (cq) leather projects usually take more than 20 hours to complete. He makes dog leashes, horse tack and hat bands by braiding leather and rawhide. He sells his crafts at the Lehi Farmer's Market every Saturday. He has been braiding leather and rawhide for almost 40 years and recently won the Best in Show at the Utah State Fair for his leather work. ASHLEY FRANSCELL/Daily Herald

Ashley Franscell

❮ ❯

Gary Turner specializes in the art of leather or rawhide braiding — making hackamores, decorative buttons, bosals, reins, hatbands and quirts.

His work has been recognized at the Utah State Fair for the second consecutive year. In 2009, he took first place in leather accessories and just recently won Best of Show on a crafted bridle in the saddles, chaps and holster category.

Not only is he good at his craft, he carries many memories of old Lehi intertwined with his pastime.

“It’s old timey, and I’m kind of old timey,” Turner said. “I’m probably the only one left doing it that I know of [in Lehi]. I’m the only one that took it serious, but that was 40 years ago.”

Turner worked at the Lehi U & I Sugar Warehouse on 850 E. 650 South, way back when sugar from the sugar beet was still a good business in the early 1970s. The sugar beet would be grown and harvested in Lehi and shipped to West Jordan where it was processed into a fine white granulated sugar.

Large bags of the sugar would then be shipped back from West Jordan and stored and dispersed from the old Lehi plant.

“I worked at the Lehi Sugar Factory with Morris Clark,” said Turner of those days. Turner was the head stacker, and they would stack large bags of sugar 40 feet high in the warehouse, he said.

“The warehouse is still there, and it would be plumb full up,” he said. “Except maybe for a 10-by-10 foot area for the office.”

Clark’s brother Eldon would come down during their lunch break at the warehouse to visit.

“Eldon used to do the rawhide braiding, and I kind of picked it up from him,” he said. “There were a bunch of us down there that used to do it. … None of them are alive anymore.”

The Clarks are gone and so are Turner’s Utah supply outlets, he said. Turner used to be able to order the rawhide he needed for braiding from a Spanish Fork tannery, but that business shut down. Then he ordered it from a place in Salt Lake City, but that business shut down too. Now he said he has to order supplies out of Texas.

He said braiding is definitely becoming a lost art.

“I think because of the time and the type it is,” he said. “It’s kind of like the tatting and the things the women used to do that they don’t do anymore.”

Turner lives in the downtown Lehi area with his wife, Colleen Turner. Retired from Dyno Nobel, he has more time to work on braiding and adopted his wife’s old sewing room for his braiding work.

The Lehi craftsman spends about three hours a day working on braiding depending on the season, doing more in the winter than in the summer months.

“When the weather is decent, I’m out working in the garden,” he said.

Colleen Turner said he has had several hobbies.

“He’s decorated our whole house with them,” she said.

Scrimshaw, the art of carving in bone and inking the grooves, woodcarving and silversmithing are a few of the other crafts he has taken an intense interest in. He has scrimshawed more than 200 powder horns.

Time has taken away his ability to specialize in those arts anymore.

“I am getting old — my eyes and hands — I can’t do the work I used to do,” he said of his other crafts. “When we were younger, we’d do the shows like Green River and some of the town celebrations around here.”