August 29, 2024 |
Photo – Local resident Dick Perue – Bigfoot99 file photo
After hearing that some folks, new to the area and who now inhabit seats on local boards, want to change Saratoga’s tried-and-true motto, an angry Dick Perue, the veteran newspaperman, wrote to the radio station, saying, “The last thing the town of Saratoga needs is to throw away its nearly century old slogan of “Where the Trout Leap in Main Street” and start all over again!”
The now-retired former newspaper publisher continued. Perue quotes an editorial from an April, 1927 issue of ‘The Saratoga Sun’ that declares that the city now has a slogan. The pithy phrase, about excitable trout, was borrowed from the title of a short story written about Saratoga as a resort town welcoming those weary of the modern, cynical world.
The editorial, which predates the Great Depression, continues, “Many local businessmen believe that Saratoga has gained a very valuable advertising slogan through the recent article written for ‘Outdoor Life’ by Billy Oneal who was one of our summer visitors last season.
Mr. Oneal’s article was entitled, ‘Where the Trout Leap in Main Street.’ The author of the century-old article continues, “Which when we think of it, is an absolute fact, and a statement calculated to arrest the attention of any tourist or sportsman who aims or desires to spend a part or all of his vacation in reach of good fishing water.
“All former efforts to evolve a slogan for advertising purposes have failed to bring forth anything as good,” the article continues, “And this wording is now being used by several merchants on all envelopes and other printed matter which they have occasion to send out, and it is expected will soon be in general use by practically all local people and given the widest possible circulation. It gives us very valuable publicity and the cost of using the slogan is very little, if anything.”
In his letter to this radio station, Perue declared that the slogan has withstood the test of time. “Throughout Saratoga’s 150 year history, hundreds of articles have been written about the town and surrounding area, with most making note of the town’s catchy moniker.
History shows the evolution of the slogan. Saratoga’s first motto was “Where Fish Jump.” It was used from the early 1880’s to about 1910. With Saratoga’s reputation spreading throughout the country, a 1910 story about the little town on the North Platte River in “The Outing Magazine” was entitled, “The Greatest Trout Fishing Town in the World.”
That message was spelled out on the town’s welcome mat to the world until 1927.
Saratoga’s current motto — “Where the Trout Leap in Main Street” — was borrowed from the title of a 1927 “Outdoor Life” magazine article on the area by writer Billy Oneal. Local lore has it that Oneal had been sitting on the riverside porch of what is now the Sierra Madre Trout Club at the corner of Main & River streets observing the aerial antics of Upper North Platte River trout as they jumped from the waters flowing over “Main Street” which extended out into the river.”
Perue writes, “Even in this age of unrelenting hype, the slogan still seems perfectly appropriate and the last thing most residents want is to see it changed!”
“If you don’t think it’s unique just call up our motto on the internet and every time it will pop-up Saratoga’s popular slogan,” Peru writes. “I have yet to see any other town in the whole world bragging: ‘Saratoga, Wyoming, Where the Trout Leap in Main Street’!”
And wasn’t that the whole point of the critique offered by local tourist gurus—something unique and specific to the locale?
In his letter to the radio station, Peru notes that that in the town of Saratoga, only one person might benefit if local busybodies succeed at ramming through a new slogan—his nephew, who owns a printing shop.
The upset, former newspaper publisher notes in his letter that Alan Williams at Perue Printing would be paid handsomely to re-print the thousands of brochures, booklets, letterheads, envelopes, business cards, etc., etc. with a new, unneeded and unwanted motto at a high and unnecessary expense to every citizen.
The lifelong Saratoga resident, who is also a fisherman, notes that he wants to shout to the world that he is from Saratoga, Wyoming, “Where the Trout Leap in Main Street!”
This radio station notes that “Where the Trout Leap on Main Street” has been part of the official slogan of Saratoga since 1927. Since then it has withstood the cultural and social changes that have swept across the nation, from the lean Depression years to the post-World War 2 euphoria, the giddy 1960s, the 70s funk, as wells as the lost years of the 1980s and 1990s.
The town’s trusty slogan has remained an unerring truth through it all.
Following World War II a new logo was designed and featured the art work of renowned artist Virginia Large, but the trusty slogan remained. Over the years many different drawings of rising trout have been depicted, but the message has always been the same.
