These city slogans are a mouthful of something Yes, you can be 'Always Turned On' in 'The City That Never Sleeps'

By Chris Rodell

msnbc.com contributor msnbc.com contributor

They are the vanity license plates of America’s cities and towns, mere handfuls of words — sometimes mere handfuls of letters — that convey metropolitan images as indelible and distinctive as tattoos.

What a city calls itself says more about a city than stacks and stacks of mind-numbing federal census figures ever could.

“A really good city slogan sells a unique experience,” says branding expert Eric Swartz, president of Tagline Guru, a San Mateo, Calif., verbal branding agency. “It can be either a conversation starter or the exclamation point at the end of a really compelling sentence.”

Some are created by history, some by committee. Some of the best are as organic and persistent as weeds.

Here are 10 of the best, most enduring and most colorful. Like the cities they represent, they’re all over the map.

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  Eagle Pass, Texas: 'Where Yee-Haw! meets Ole!'
  

Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce

Eagle Pass, Texas

This is euphoric little border town is where multiculturalism is literally embraced. “Our town (and Mexico’s Piedras Negras) has a long history of friendly collaboration,” says Sandra Martinez of the Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce (http://eaglepasstexas.com). “That’s been our slogan for nearly 20 years because it practically screams ‘border’ and ‘fun.’” That bit about cultures embracing isn’t just marketing hyperbole either. Eagle Pass is home to the International Friendship Festival, March 18-27. “The highlight is the ‘Abrazo’ — Spanish for 'embrace' — where people from both countries line up to hug one another in the middle of International Bridge No. 1.” Bridge No. 1? “Yes, we built another one a few years ago to make it easier for everyone to go back and forth.”

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Paul Weinfurtner  /  Desert Nuclear/Paul Weinfurtner

Saratoga, Wyo.

And you thought your local public works department struggled with things like snow removal. The late outdoor writer Billy O’Neil used the line after observing bionic-looking trout springing from the North Platte River that runs through this picturesque town. “It ran in Outdoor Living magazine in 1927 and just stuck,” says local promoter Stacy Crimmins (www.saratogachamber.info). “Today that line is on our lampposts, our promotional materials and still really resonates with people who love the great outdoors.” Saratoga’s Hotel Wolf is a renown destination for prime rib lovers, but that’s not the only unlikely traffic you’ll see in tiny Saratoga, pop. 1,736. “The cars on the bridge have to slow down to allow for all the people fishing the river time to cast,” Crimmins says. The priorities in Saratoga mean that people fishing always have the right of way.

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  Independence, Mo.: 'Where The Trail Starts & The Buck Stops'
  

Herbert Webb  /  City of Independence Tourism

Vaile Mansion, built by frontier business tycoon Harvey Vaile in 1881 in Independence, Mo.

As deft a city summation as could be conjured, this phrase gloriously reduces the rich history of this once rough, now refined, frontier town to just eight descriptive words. The first half refers to the town’s proud history as the Ellis Island of the Midwest. “Independence was for more than 400,000 Americans the last look at civilization before heading off into the Plains and Indian territory,” says Janeen Aggen of www.visitindependence.com. The National Frontier Trails Museum is here, and tourists can enjoy informative city tours on mule-drawn covered wagon. The Harry S Truman Library & Museum depicts America’s 33rd president as colorful, charming and authentic, much like the very Missouri town he forever called home.

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  Yuma, Ariz.: 'Experience Our Sense of Yuma'