The Icebox of the Nation

Welcome to International Falls, the town that fought in court to prove it was cold. Sitting on the Canadian border in the far north of Minnesota, this is a place where the average year brings more than one hundred and nine days with a high temperature below freezing. The nickname arrived in the nineteen fifties, when Collier's magazine crowned the town the coldest in the nation, and locals happily adopted the title, the Icebox of the Nation.

But another town wanted the same crown. Fraser, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains, also called itself the Icebox, and for decades the two places quarreled over who could claim the phrase. In nineteen eighty six, International Falls paid Fraser two thousand dollars to give up its official claim, and the matter seemed settled.

Then, in nineteen ninety six, International Falls forgot to renew its federal trademark, though it had kept the state one current. Fraser pounced and filed to take the federal registration for itself. What followed was a genuine legal battle over a nickname.

International Falls dug into its history and produced photographs proving that its Pee Wee hockey team had carried the Icebox slogan all the way to Boston, Massachusetts back in nineteen fifty five. After years of argument, the United States Patent and Trademark Office finally sided with the town on the northern border. On January twenty ninth, two thousand eight, International Falls became the official, federally registered Icebox of the Nation.

Here is the twist that locals will admit if you press them. International Falls is famous for cold, but it is not always the single coldest spot in the lower states. The nearby Embarrass Valley and the town of Embarrass often post even lower readings, and Minnesota's all time record low of negative sixty degrees was set nearby at Tower in nineteen ninety six.

Still, International Falls holds the trademark, the reputation, and the winter festival called Icebox Days, where residents celebrate the season with frozen turkey bowling and a race called the Freeze Yer Gizzard Blizzard Run. In this town, the cold is not a complaint. It is an identity worth defending in federal court.