The cold war, you will be happy to know, has ended. It was won by International Falls, Minn., which has recaptured the right to be known far and wide as the "Icebox of the Nation."
The dubious title had been the object of a hotly (or is it coldly?) contested war that has sent temperatures rising and falling across two states for the past two years.International Falls, an old paper mill center of 5,611 on the Canadian border, had considered itself as the nation's icebox for decades, routinely reporting winter temperatures of 30 or 40 degrees below zero, without serious challenge. But until recent years, no one (presumably city fathers were too busy trying to keep warm) ever bothered to copyright the title.
Then, along came tiny Fraser, Colo., population 750, claiming the coldest thermometer in the West. It won a copyright from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the "Icebox of the Nation" title and sought an order barring the Minnesota city from using the nickname.
This was enough to send shivers down the spine of Jack Murray, mayor of International Falls. Fraser based its cold claims on average year-round temperature, not frigid winter lows like International Falls. That made Murray's blood boil. He belittled Fraser Mayor J.B. Jensen, who grew up in southern Minnesota, as a product of "the Banana Belt." When he visited the Colorado mountain town late one winter, Murray found it "real warm. I told them, "Gosh, I should have worn my summer shorts.' "
But behind the warm-hearted banter was a chilling fear. The icebox title had become a matter of cold cash for International Falls. It was the city's image to the world, the catch phrase that separated it from every other town in America.
"We've always had cold weather, and people knew our name from the television weather reports," said Murray. "So a few years ago we said, "Let's take what most people think is a negative and make it into a positive.' "
Marketing itself as the coldest place in the country, the city developed a cold-weather testing industry that now adds about $1 million to the local economy annually. Bell Helicopter, General Motors and Ford Motors have all tested their products there; Sears filmed battery ads for television. Hoping to expand the industry, the state of Minnesota gave the city a $2.2 million grant to build a cold-weather resource center.
City fathers, fearing the new industry endangered, vowed a fight to the finish for the icebox title. "We want to say, "Cold weather tested in International Falls, the Ice Box of the Nation,' and have it be like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval," said Murray.
Until last week, a costly showdown appeared inevitable before the U.S. Trademark Trail and Appeals Board in Washington. Then, the town council of Fraser, a mountain town about 70 miles west of Denver, voted 5 to 2 to end its fight to retain the title.
"Cold-weather testing is more important to their economy than it is to ours," said Fraser town manager Clay Brown. "We feel we have plenty of other assets."
In return for the truce, International Falls is to reimburse Fraser $2,000 for legal fees and let Fraser call itself an icebox all it wants back home in Colorado.
"It was a very warm ending to a cold war," said Murray in a telephone interview from "The Icebox of the Nation." Identity problems aren't anything new. Almost every American city and and state is concerned about its image. There is almost an obsession with establishing an identity. The attitude is: Any image, good or bad, is better than no image at all.
There was a time when image making was a relatively simple matter. States tended to adopt animals, rocks or trees as nicknames. Louisiana was "the Pelican State," Georgia "the Peach State," Utah "the Beehive State," Alabama "the Camellia State," New Hampshire "the Granite State" and Oregon "the Beaver State."
Cities tended to identify with products they produced: Detroit was the "Motor City"; Pittsburgh "Iron City"; Lynn, Mass., "Shoe City"; Hollywood, Calif., the "Film Capital of the World"; and Green Bay, Wis., the "Toilet Paper Capital of the World."
Those were the days before every state had a multimillion dollar advertising budget and legions of public relations agents. Now things are more complex. Places want to sound trendy.
The marketing folks argue that big dollars are at stake. They play on inferiority complexes. Legislators in Mississippi, which was once satisfied with being "the Magnolia State," have been persuaded to finance a $2 million ad campaign that describes Mississippi as "The State of Change."
The ads are aimed at corporate bigwigs. "We're trying to get corporate America to look at Mississippi in a different way," J. Mac Holladay, director of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, said in announcing the campaign. Currently, he said, Mississippi has two images, "bad and none."