Early print ads
All around lovely Steamboat Colorado is a lot of nothing. It is fantastically beautiful nothing, but pretty empty nonetheless. It was while we were riding along stunning US40 towards Steamboat that we first saw the FM Light and Sons signs. These advertise all the sorts of “Western Wear” that your average well-dressed Cowboy migt require – from Stetson hats to boots, checked shirts, even horse blankets and, more inexplicably, dungarees, each category with its dedicated signs.
It seemed like every few miles there was another one that entreated us to visit the store in town. It turns out they actually work. The first few amused us, the next half dozen made us curious, so after a hundred miles or so we felt that we HAD to visit this shop that had given us so much reading material on the way. So go we did. And to cut a long story short we ended up leaving with a pair of FABULOUS boots each and a wonderful boot puller-offer. A device no home should be without.
We marketing folk are suckers for good advertising, so I looked into the history of the shop. It turns out that around 300 of them were erected in the early 1900s by a marketing genius of his time who made sure that anyone coming into town from any direction knew all about his shop. Many of them were taken down over time but those that remain today are considered historic landmarks and are regularly maintained. Not a bad legacy from the marketing man who secured all that outdoor ad space for free for generations to come 🙂