is 开云体育鈥檚 listener-powered journalism podcast. Every episode begins with a question submitted by our audience. Today, a question from Joe Emery, of Essex:
鈥淲hat is the history of the Stowe font 鈥� why and how is it used for public buildings belonging to the town, as well as private businesses?鈥�
Joe has been seeing the swoopy, stylized version of the word 鈥淪towe鈥� since he was a kid. But lately he鈥檚 become more curious about how it came to represent both the private Stowe ski resort as well as these other aspects of town life.
BLS reporter Sabine Poux heads to Stowe to find out.
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Sabine Poux: Gondolas, store windows, a covered bridge. Those are just some of the places you鈥檒l see those swooping red letters 鈥� an S, bleeding into a T, then an O, W, E. I鈥檇 bet you can picture them in your mind鈥檚 eye. Or, if you鈥檙e driving through Lamoille County right now, while you鈥檙e listening to this, you鈥檙e probably seeing them with your own eyes.
Joe Emery: I鈥檓 a very observant driver, and so I noticed the Stowe sign all over the place.
Sabine Poux: Question-asker Joe Emery has been seeing this stylized version of the word 鈥淪towe鈥� since he was a kid. It鈥檚 part of the landscape of the Vermont he knows.
Joe Emery: Being a lifelong Vermonter, even if you don't go to Stowe a ton, I feel like I see that logo all over the place.
Sabine Poux: Today, Joe鈥檚 a high school social studies teacher. He lives in Essex. And he still sees the logo around when he鈥檚 visiting friends in the Stowe area. But now that he鈥檚 an adult, he鈥檚 like 鈥� hold on a second.
Joe Emery: What caught my eye was seeing the font on the Stowe Police Department or a police cruiser.
Sabine Poux: Joe鈥檚 like, huh, it鈥檚 sort of weird that this red and white swoopy logo 鈥� it represents the private Stowe Mountain ski resort, and it also represents all these other parts of life in the town of Stowe. It鈥檚 on the library building, on the 鈥淲elcome to Town鈥� signs, on sweatshirts and baseball caps in local stores. It鈥檚 kind of uncanny. Like, everything in the town is part of one giant brand or something.
Turns out, it is unusual. No one I talked to for this story could think of other examples in Vermont where a town and a private business share a logo like this. The closest we could think of was Killington, whose town and mountain logos sport similar colors, and are definitely in the same family. But Stowe鈥檚 logos? They鈥檙e exactly the same.
It鈥檚 become something that Joe can鈥檛 unsee. It鈥檚 been bugging him so much that he came to our question box three different times.
Joe really wants to know:
Joe Emery: What is the history of the Stowe font 鈥� why and how is it used for public buildings belonging to the town, as well as private businesses?
(Door knock)
Sabine Poux: Hi! How are you?
Barbara Baraw: Come on in.
Sabine Poux: The Stowe Historical Society is housed in an old one-room schoolhouse a short walk from downtown.
Sabine Poux: Good to see you.
Barbara Baraw: Good to see you, too.
Sabine Poux: Barbara Baraw is the historical society's president. She lights up when we ask about the logo.
Barbara Baraw: I just would like to express gratitude that you even inquired about it. I mean鈥�
Sabine Poux: It鈥檚 interesting.
Barbara Baraw: It's part of my being.
Sabine Poux: Barbara has a soft spot for one of the logo鈥檚 letters, in particular. The first one 鈥� which starts in a flurry of snowflakes and swoops over the 鈥渢.鈥� She knows it as the 鈥淔lying S.鈥�
Sabine Poux: What does the 鈥淪鈥� mean to you?
Barbara Baraw: Energy. That that is almost like a shush on unbroken snow.
Yeah, and I guess, maybe, it's part of my youth.
Sabine Poux: It's kind of, is it nostalgic a little bit?
Barbara Baraw: Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I mean 鈥� I've been here more than 50 years.
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Sabine Poux: Barbara first came to Stowe in the 1960s. By that time, she says, the stylized Stowe logo was a few years old. She got involved with Stowe鈥檚 local tourism group. And she says they used the Flying S in their advertisements. So did nonprofits, local businesses and the ski mountain.
Barbara鈥檚 like 鈥� if you think it鈥檚 all over the place now, you should have seen it back then. It was everywhere in those early days.
Barbara Baraw: And it was used, I would say, up until maybe the first part of this century, quite a bit.
Sabine Poux: The logo was designed by an who was born in Germany and . He moved to the U.S. in the 1920s, and designed posters for the railroads, the U.S. Army and ski resorts around the country 鈥� all in his signature colorful, attention-grabbing, art deco style.
Sascha reportedly visited Stowe, and was friends with the resort president. And so with a little help from the resort and an ad agency in New York, he created that iconic S-T-O-W-E whose shape is thought to be modeled after a ski turn, cutting across the mountain.
That鈥檚 certainly the motion it evokes for Barbara.
Barbara Baraw: If you look at the top of it, and you go around one part of a turn, and you do another turn, and then the flying snow flakes behind it, you know, that's there.
Barbara Baraw: This is all I could find.
Sabine Poux: Barbara pulls out an old Sascha Maurer poster that says 鈥淪ki Stowe Vermont鈥� in bold letters, over a drawing of the trail-speckled mountain. I swear I鈥檝e seen a reprint of one of these in someone鈥檚 college dorm.
Barbara says the real things don鈥檛 run cheap.
Barbara Baraw: If you go to, I think it鈥檚 Art Net, you can spend a whole lot of money on buying one.
Sabine Poux: Early posters like these advertise the ski resort. Barbara also finds an old hotel directory from 1952 sporting a version of Sascha鈥檚 design. It seems like almost as soon as it was created, the Flying S started catching on.
Most of the people who were involved back then, including Sascha, are long gone. But Barbara says years ago, Stowe鈥檚 newspaper did a big historical retrospective about the logo. That story, and 鈥� they鈥檙e stored in the basement of the library next door.
Rifling through an archive full of old newspapers? Well that just sounds like heaven to Barbara and me.
Barbara Baraw: Yeah, they鈥檒l let us do that. Come along.
Barbara Baraw: (Paper rustling sounds) There it is.
Sabine Poux: Do you remember when this spread came out?
Barbara Baraw: Oh, sure.
Sabine Poux: In July, 2004, the Stowe Reporter did a big spread about the Stowe logo, called 鈥淟etter Perfect: The story behind Stowe鈥檚 Flying S.鈥� Its pages are plastered with old photos of the Stowe logo around town: at the inn, the golf park, on the old Stowe electric sign, at the police station, like question-asker Joe Emery noticed.
Barbara Baraw: Snowmobile rentals, it鈥檚 on that. That no longer is in town.
Sabine Poux: According to the article 鈥� the ski resort and the local Stowe tourism group were working as a single entity when the logo came out in the 鈥�50s. So, the resort and other local businesses were encouraged to use the design freely to sell Stowe to the world.
But eventually, resort leadership started drawing more of a distinction between the resort and the town. And they actually went so far as to trademark the logo. That trademark was filed in the early 1990s, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.
Now, the trademark didn鈥檛 put a complete kibosh on the logo鈥檚 use around town, obviously. But it did mean that it was no longer the free-for-all that Barbara remembers.
In that 2004 article, Stowe employee Mike Colburn told the paper that the company was still getting regular requests from businesses who wanted to use it.
Here鈥檚 Barbara, reading from the paper.
Barbara Baraw: 鈥淲hile Colburn's general philosophy remains that the more people who see the logo, the better, he says that the resort tries to preserve the integrity of the logo. 鈥� For example, we just turned down a request for a company who wanted to print the logo on silk underwear.鈥�
Sabine Poux: In the years since, there鈥檚 been a sort of natural attrition of the logo around town. There don鈥檛 seem to be a lot of new businesses who are putting it on their signs or using it in their ads. One business owner I talked to said she wasn鈥檛 even sure who she鈥檇 have to ask to put it on her sign 鈥� so she decided it just wasn鈥檛 worth the trouble.
In 2017, Colorado-based Vail bought Stowe Mountain Resort. And when it did, the Stowe logo officially became theirs.
More from Brave Little State: "How has Vail's acquisition of Vermont ski areas impacted locals?"
To this day, there鈥檚 no formal agreement between Vail and the town, which still uses the design on its website, on the library building 鈥� on its police cruisers.
Joe Emery: I feel like that's totally a Vermont thing, right? A sort of nod and a wink and a handshake deal, and we're gonna all use this to better ourselves as a whole community, which is awesome.
Sabine Poux: That鈥檚 Joe Emery again, our eagle-eyed question-asker.
Joe Emery: I would just advocate, I mean, please don't make it any more difficult to use. I think this, like we said, this is a kind of a once in the world, or only really example that comes to mind. So I think, keep that designation as a really unique partnership between the business and the town.
Sabine Poux: If this all just feels like one giant branding campaign, that鈥檚 because it was. And all these decades later, it鈥檚 fair to say 鈥� it worked.
75 years since the Flying S first swooshed onto the scene, it鈥檚 just part of the landscape here, for locals and visitors, too.
Sara Tauben: Well, it connotes skiing, the swoosh of course. I wouldn鈥檛 change it.
Keri Smotrich: We were just talking about it.
Sabine Poux: You were just talking about it?
Keri Smotrich: We were talking about 鈥� it鈥檚 very vintage, retro looking and we liked it.
Maggie Hughes: We were just looking at sweatshirts with it (laughter).
Ezra Spring: It鈥檚 just so familiar for people that have been here over the years. Because it鈥檚 been here so long. 鈥� I鈥檝e worked here for 15 years. 鈥� I recognize it right away.
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Credits
Thanks to Joe Emery, of Essex, for the great question.
This episode was reported by Sabine Poux. It was edited and produced by Josh Crane and Burgess Brown. Our intern is Catherine Morrissey. Angela Evancie is our Executive Producer. Digital support from Sophie Stephens. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to Nina Keck, Poppy Gall, Carrie Simmons, Amy Spear, Emily Hurd ,Tommy Gardner, Marina Gisquet, Abby Blackburn, Tim Hayes, Courtney Difiore, Sarah Tauben, Keri Smotrich, Maggie Hughes, Ezra Spring and the folks at the Stowe Free Library.
As always, our journalism is better when you鈥檙e a part of it:
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Brave Little State is a production of 开云体育 and a proud member of the NPR Network.
