Alien Marketing

Story and Photos by Diana Hooley

Sometime in the late 1970s, on a remote stretch of Highway 30 in southwestern Idaho, I saw a sign of aliens. I knew UFOs had crash-landed somewhere in the West, because I read a book about it growing up in Indiana. But what I saw on Highway 30 was a sign that literally could have been posted only by alien beings. No earthly person would spend good money on a sign that said: “Sagebrush Is Free—Stuff Some in Your Car.”

As I drove past the sign, I glanced in my rearview mirror. On the reverse side was an advertisement for cheap gas. A cheerful looking skunk named Fearless Farris wanted me to stop at his Stinker Gas Station. I wondered at the genius who thought this advertisement was cute instead of corny, the person who tried to lure customers to a gas station called Stinker.

My sarcastic attitude lasted until I found out that Farris Lind was a marketing genius who built a gas station empire in Idaho, Utah, and Nevada in the 1940s through 60s. Rick Just, who contributes to IDAHO magazine, wrote a book about Lind called Fearless that describes this self-made man who was not afraid to take risks or follow his gut.

It was Lind’s innovative mind that led to the humorous quips on the backside of his highway advertisements. He built his first Stinker Station signs shortly after World War II, when there was a shortage of exterior plywood. He ended up using the interior kind, which had to be painted on both sides to preserve the wood.

This left him with the problem of what to do with the blank backside of his advertising board. He said he came up with the idea of a witty quip to keep sleepy drivers awake when they drove across the empty desert.

At one time there were over 150 Stinker Station signs from Wyoming to Oregon. John Hiler, who grew up in Glenns Ferry, remembers the advertisement near his town. The sign said, “Idaho is full of lonely, beautiful women.” John didn’t know who wrote, “Where?” across the sign.

Rick wrote on his “Speaking of Idaho” blog that he knew of only two Stinker Station signs that exist today. That number recently dwindled to one when Idaho Falls’ sign, “Warning to Tourists—Do Not Laugh at the Natives” mysteriously disappeared.

“There’s more Stinker Station signs around Idaho than that,” my husband told me. ”I know of at least two here in Elmore County. And I think there might be one near Buhl too, but I’m not sure.”

I hopped in my car to scope out the two Elmore County signs. One of them was in King Hill, a sleepy hamlet which once was a bustling community before the freeway took Highway 30 traffic and traveler dollars away. As I drove down a country road in King Hill, the summer sun was high in the sky. I scanned the landscape and saw only irrigated fields of hay and potatoes shimmering in the heat.

Then I spotted the yellow Stinker Station sign rising up like a beacon from a pile of lava rock. It read, “Petrified Watermelons. Take One Home to Your Mother-in-Law.” Not profound wisdom, but still I smiled. It must have been the exact reaction Lind was hoping to get when he first put up these advertisements.

The other Stinker Station sign was just outside Mountain Home. It was the “Sagebrush Is Free” sign I had seen back in the 70s. I thought it had disappeared, maybe rotted and went tumbling with the tumbleweed across the desert. But the sign was still standing, only it was so faded I hadn’t noticed it.

I got out of my car to take a closer look, I could still make out the outline of the words “sage” and “free.” The Stinker Station sign at Mountain Home seems a fitting epitaph for Farris Lind. It’s a reminder that Lind was once the witty sage of Idaho’s highways—and his gas, if not free, was cheap!