A small town in Oregon seeks salvation -- in frogs

[dArKeR]

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , MILTON-FREEWATER, OREGON

A town struggling to stand out, desperate to court tourists and hot to rescue a near-dead economy has to get really creative these days.

It cannot, as this northeastern Oregon town did in sleepy eras past, merely come up with a slogan, say call itself the "Sweet Pea Capital," the "Apple Capital" or "Home of the Low Cost Utility."

It cannot simply hang a few banners on Main Street and expect people to notice.

That is where the frogs come in. Milton-Freewater, one of a growing number of the nation's towns and cities to embrace a strategic staple of corporate America, is reinventing itself completely and branding itself like a product.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2004/06/21/2003175978

[stevedeshazer]

1. Times are tough in small-town Oregon

Anyone who has ever been to Milton-Freewater knows that frogs are not exactly prevalent there. It's desert country, despite the name.

A guy in my old home town wanted to build a 30-foot tall dog statue (representing Meriweather Lewis' Newfoundland) in a downtown park, and a bunch of people thought it would lure tourists downtown. These same people that allowed Wal-Mart to build out on the highway that bypasses the town.

[DustMolecule]

2. At first I thought that this town was going to 'raise frogs'

...you know, raise the frogs, sell the legs for the culinary 'delicacy' of frog legs. Use the rest of the frog carcass for fertilizer, etc.

But I forgot that we don't seem to actually PRODUCE much here anymore...we just 'market' stuff (even if it's just an image).