From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
Sault Ste. Marie is Algoma’s Friendliest City. The Rotary Welcome Arch on Russ Ramsay Way says so, after all. But how and when did this slogan come to be?
A look through the Sault Daily Star archives points to the early 1920’s when citizen members hijacked the Star for one day. On August 4, 1923, Mayor James Dawson and a small group of citizens defied newspaper norms to fill it with all things positive. They called it the ‘Goodwill Edition’ and dedicated it to the Star’s editor, J.W. Curran, whom they felt had much to do with Algoma’s development since his Sault arrival in 1901.
From St. Catharine's to Fort Frances, newspapers province-wide sang the Goodwill Edition’s praises, which the Star was sure to broadcast back home in its own columns. The Woodstock Sentinel-Review said: “The best thing about it, (the Goodwill edition) is the fine spirit displayed by the people.” The Kingston Whig Standard declared: “No edition of a country daily has aroused such general interest in the province, nor received much editorial notice”.
The Whig concluded that Sault Ste. Marie was not only the friendliest city in Algoma, but in America, adding: “No doubt, the citizens who first suggested the publication of the Goodwill Edition had no thought that the chief effect throughout the province would be to give Sault Ste. Marie a reputation for being an unusually friendly place. In our view, this unexpected advertising of the Sault as a uniquely friendly town is the very best boost the place has ever got. The compliment is deserved. The Sault is the friendliest town in America.”
If the Goodwill Edition was a catalyst for putting Sault Ste Marie on the ‘friendly town’ map, the Star and city leaders continued riding the momentum. On May 29, 1924, the first week of June was declared ‘letter writing week’. Algoma residents were asked to each “take fate into their own hands” by spending 3 cents to write one letter to an Ontarian paper. The Star wrote: “Today we beg to suggest that every citizen who has the welfare of the district at heart take up the job with the weeklies. There are about 200 of these in Old Ontario and we suggest that each one should get several short letters.” Every paper in the province along with its town and editor were listed, including four facts to share in the letter; number four being: “tell them the Sault is the most interesting and friendliest town in America.”
In addition to his role at the Daily Star, J.W. Curran was an active leader within the Rotary Club, an organization whose principals have always stood on friendliness and helpfulness. This friendly terminology was often sprinkled throughout the Star to penetrate public consciousness, especially during special events like Rotary Community Nights– now known as Rotary Fest. Before the first Community Night in 1922, the Star encouraged residents to attend, saying: “Why not make the Sault known as the friendliest town on earth, commencing Community Night or earlier.”
The events, it seems, were effective in putting the words into motion. In July 1924, the Star published a Michigan Soo Times review stating: “Make up your mind that you will not miss the next Community Night in Soo, Ontario. Time was when the Canadian Soo was stiff, self-conscious, reserved and icy to the stranger within its gates. Curran and his men are changing all that. They are proceeding to demonstrate the city’s slogan, ‘Sault Ste Marie, the Friendliest Town in America’ and they are making good.”
In July 1926, the Star took the friendly thing up a notch, running a contest titled, “Who is Algoma’s Friendliest Man?” The pitch said: “Visitors to a community are told ‘the trouble with this place is that there are too many cliques– people don’t pull together. When a community’s attention is directed to friendliness as a civic virtue there will be more of it.” The winner of the contest, Mr. Lou Chapman, was announced on Community Night and given a walking stick by the Daily Star.
By February 9, 1927, “the Friendliest Town in Canada” became the Sault Daily Star’s official newspaper slogan, headlining the top of every issue. Soon even local shops and organizations began using it in their advertising campaigns. The Globe Clothing Company on Queen St. East ran an ad saying: “Shop with Confidence in the Friendliest Store in the Friendliest Town”. And by 1937/38, under direction of the Rotary Club and designer John Arthur Luxton, the Welcome Arch was built at the original ferry site, becoming the Sault’s most popular photo opp. and postcard.
Several personal testimonials have been published over the years regarding the slogan’s accuracy– many positive; others, not so much. In July 1924, the Star covered a testimonial from Earl Johnson who had visited from Grand Rapids for fishing: “This is the friendliest town I have yet hit. It’s great to land in a place like this. Talk about a reception!...We’re coming back. You’ve got a great country, a reception committee which included every one of your 22,000 citizens, and the fish are here, oh boy! Wait till I tell Grand Rapids about the Soo.”
In August 1930, Mabel Crews Ringland of Islington shared a similar experience with the Star, gushing: “I just wanted to tell you how well pleased we were with the treatment we received in the Soo. The people were so friendly and everywhere, in the stores, the post office, the garages and filling stations, serving us as though it was a pleasure and never once overcharging. The Soo well deserves the title of, ‘The Friendliest Town in Canada,’ and no mistake.”
In June 1958, a resident ‘G.G’ wrote to the Star: “a tourist city should bend over backwards to make visitors feel at home. But Sault Ste. Marie, Algoma’s Friendliest City’ often falls short in this.” He went on to complain that the parking meters were not labelled correctly and tourists were errantly putting money in during times they weren’t required to. And in August 1958, a Star Staff Reporter questioned: “is Sault Ste. Marie ‘Algoma’s Friendliest City’ because it’s Algoma’s only city or because it is populated with friendly people?” She surveyed several newcomers, one who said: “Dyed-in-the-wool Sooites are far too defensive about their way of life. Criticism should be constructive, even if it isn’t the most flattering, and most of the residents of Sault Ste. Marie can’t take criticism.”
In October 1955, Marion Conway complained that she had witnessed an elderly lady carrying parcels being treated so rudely by a bus driver, that the lady decided to turn around and walk home, parcels and all. Conway wrote: “this is not Toronto or any one of the other big cities where people are ignorant and rude because they are used to being that way, but Sault Ste. Marie, a place where people have been taught to have respect and courtesy.”
The ‘Friendliest City’ slogan came into further question in December 1963 when the Star, under the direction of Robert and John Curran wrote, “our city may not be the friendliest in Canada, for Northern Ontario has its own peculiar reserve, its own way of life, which doesn’t entail glad-handing every person who wheels into it. Many complaints come from young people who come to town in September of each year to take up new teaching positions. They contend that they are met by coolness or indifference.”
Today, decades later, hundreds of commuters walk, bike and drive past the present-day Welcome Arch daily. Reinstated in 2011, it still proudly boasts “Algoma’s Friendliest City”. Maybe it will always be a point of contention and curiosity of the past. But if evidence points back to J.W. Curran, the Daily Star, the Rotary Club and 1920s leaders as the strong voices that shaped the Sault’s friendly reputation, the best question moving forward may simply be: are we, as a community, upholding that legacy now?
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