International Falls says it loud: We're cold, and we're proud

By CURT BROWN, Star Tribune

Last update: February 8, 2008 - 10:18 PM

On a balmy, 28-degree day on the Canadian border, the bigwigs of International Falls gathered Friday to celebrate at the Elks Lodge. Earlier this week, the city attorney opened an envelope containing Reg. No. 3,375,139 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Despite legal challenges from tiny Fraser, Colo., the document confirmed that International Falls is legally, rightfully and officially the Icebox of the Nation.

"I ran over to the attorney's office and kissed the certificate," International Falls Mayor Shawn Mason said Friday afternoon, when reached on her cell phone at the Elks Lodge. "Fraser's actions had sent a chill down my spine."

From an adjacent bar stool, City Administrator Rod Otterness said: "We're celebrating first because we're just thrilled the title has been confirmed. We'll wait until next week to notify them of their copyright infringement. If Fraser wants to call itself the Icebox of Colorado, we have no problem."

Out in Fraser, a ski-area town of 1,000 people 70 miles northwest of Denver, both a city welcome sign and the city's website call itself the Icebox of the Nation.

The towns have clashed before, with International Falls submitting photographic proof that its 1955 Pee Wee hockey team traveled to Boston with jackets boasting its national Icebox status. The Falls, as locals call it, even paid Fraser $2,000 to cease and desist in the late 1980s.

But when the Minnesota town of 6,500 failed to renew its trademark, Fraser jumped.

"They let it lapse and we thought, heck, if they don't want it, we do," Fraser Mayor Fran Cook said Friday. "This is the first I've heard of any resolution and I have to admit I'm surprised."

If her lawyers confirm defeat, though, Cook said little will change.

"It's something we've always gotten a kick out of and it will not disappear from the old-timers' lingo," she said.

At one point in the legal wrangling, International Falls submitted an affidavit from a St. Cloud State meteorologist, who insisted ice cream would melt and meat would thaw 11 months a year in Fraser, while both would be safe all winter long in International Falls.

"It's supposed to be 20-below with wind come Sunday," Mason said, toasting the chill with another frosty one.

And the forecast for Fraser? Sunny and mid-30s.

Curt Brown • 612-673-4767

Recent Local + Metro stories

Drug misuse on Minnesota dairy cows prompts federal warning - February 8, 2008

Drug misuse on Minnesota dairy cows prompts federal warning - Two state farms were reprimanded for unsafe levels of antibiotics in animals. The 2 animals were pulled from slaughter lines after testing. More