Limbert believed in the economic possibilities of tourism. His securing of a private lease to build a lodge at Redfish Lake on state-owned land in central Idaho put his own money behind his beliefs and gave the easterners enthralled with his stories of Idaho scenery, hunting, and fishing, a destination for their travel dreams. In Idaho Yesterdays, Casner comments: "Though he was concerned with conservation, his motivations were primarily economic. By displaying Idaho through a variety of media, he acted as a self-appointed department of commerce promoting tourism as well as his own business interests." A 1928 Boise Capital News story lauded Limbert's Izaak Walton tour for "putting Idaho on the map." Another paper cynically noted: "Here's Bob Limbert in Chicago impressing the natives with this big he-man from the wide open spaces stuff. After perusing Chicago newspapers one gathers that Bob has grabbed down some bit of publicity for Idaho and incidentally some for himself. Perhaps it would be better to say that he'd grabbed down some publicity for himself and incidentally some for Idaho."

While no texts or tapes are known to exist of Limbert's speeches, newspaper accounts and promotional advertisements provide a glimpse of his content and style. In the pre-television era, touring speakers provided a substantial portion of a community's outside entertainment. His promoters, Dorothy Fox and later the prestigious Albert and Wilkes Agency, published large advertisements and a four page promotional feature urging communities to bid for his services. The ads contained blurbs from letters and telegrams solicited after Limbert's speeches: "Limbert went over big in Chapter meeting before largest crowd in history of chapter." "Bob Limbert was a sensation at the National Convention at Omaha last April, and he'll prove a sensation anywhere he's booked. He's a born showman. One is better off for having spent an evening with this breezy Westerner, who entertains and instructs in his own original way."

One advertisement outlines Limbert's presentation to Izaak Walton League chapters:

1. A breezy talk on the West he knows so well, showing moving pictures of that country as he talks.
2. Bird imitations, illustrated with beautiful colored slides.
3. The exhibition of a dozen or so huge colored pictures of the Sawtooth Country that he has made famous, accompanied by an all-absorbing talk on that country.
4. A membership sales talk immediately follows if so desired, with help from the "Key Men" of the Chapter.
5. The remainder of the evening spent in putting over his wonderful shooting exhibition.
6. Shooting challenge.

His presentation exuded an "inimitable and graphic western style"; he was "not an actor, but the real thing, a man who has lived and knows intimately the things he talks about."

On the national tour, citizens flocked to see "Two Gun" Bob Limbert or "The Man From Idaho."  Part of his exotic appeal, at least to Eastern men, was captured in the program for the 5^th Annual Iowa State School of Instruction for Sheriffs: "Limbert is a typical westerner, in both dress and manner, and a man who has led just the kind of a life that all red-blooded men would like, if it were possible for them to do so."

A Cedar Falls, Iowa, paper reported:

Limbert's personality reminds one much of Will Rogers. One could not help but draw the comparison as he donned his western habiliments, chaps and all, and stood twirling his hat on a fore-finger while recounting humorous anecdotes of his life in the wilds. Among these, he related how he played a prank on Zbyszko and Santell, two famous wrestlers of past years who were guests at Limbert's "dude" ranch in the Sawtooth mountains. With a lariat coiled beneath the blanket of Zybszko's bunk in the cabin Limbert, one of his ranch hands and the two wrestlers occupied on a camping trip, Limbert turned the talk to rattlesnakes. He had previously placed some small pebbles inside a cartridge box which he had affixed to the end of a long stick, and with the loose end of the lariat near his hand the stage was all set. After Limbert's ranch hand had told how the original occupant of the cabin and been killed by a rattlesnake's bite when the reptile entered the cabin at night and followed it by remarking that he and heard a snake's rattle about the premises early in the evening, Limbert emulated the rattlesnake's "buzz" by shaking the box of pebbles near Zybszko's bed. He followed this a moment later by pulling slowly on the lariat. As the giant Polish wrestler felt the coils uncurling beneath him, he bounded from his bunk and almost broke the door down in getting outside, Limbert related.

"I then had to go through the formality of killing that 'snake' with a club before Zybszko would re-enter the cabin," he said, "and I didn't dare tell him the whole thing was a hoax. There are no rattlesnakes in the Sawtooth mountains."

Some promotional materials and newspapers recollect Limbert's stories. A favorite was of a "twelve-year-old Idaho boy who caught so many trout at Redfish Lake that the fish on his stringer pulled his raft around the lake."

Limbert's correspondence contains few references to his speech content or style. A 1929 letter remarks to Mr. W. H. Wright of Buhl that being rebooked at places he visited last winter "make[s] a fellow feel good." His descriptive letters may indicate the style of his speeches. In 1928 Limbert wrote to John Stanfield of Fort Worth, Texas:

Last week I sent you my last copy of "Unknown Places In Idaho" a book which I wrote for the Union Pacific R.R. ¼ The Dolly Varden trout are beginning to run and there are a couple of hundred laying up at the mouth of the creek near here waiting to go up after dark. Some of them look to measure close to three feet. The biggest one I have yet caught was 26 1/2 inches. They are fighting devils."

To Donald Hough in July of 1928 Limbert typed:

Well, by Goly -- well, for crying out loud, -- well gosh darn but your looking fine. How the hell are you anyway. What are you eating nowdays and how is that old hot roof. Oh! OH! Boy I bet it’s a scorcher.

I often think of you poor devils cooped up like you are while I, worthless good for nothing that I am am out here in the land where men are real men and women are mostly female impersonators and where red liquor costs you 25 [cents] across the counter with no thought of the Volstead Law. It’s the life.

Honest now I feel kinda sorry for you poor devils. Listen -- trout last night for supper cooked by an old hill billy who sure knows his frying pans. Listen some more-- honest now, when I sampled all the trimmings and have finished with that last cup of simply delicious coffee I would have thought I was in the Black Hawk if I hadn't looked about and seen golden barked trees instead of marble columns and heard the lap- lap of the waves from the lake against the shore instead of an orchestra, if I had not seen snow capped towering mountain peaks and the blue waters of my lake instead of hurrying dusty, tired crowds. ¼

Honest, when I think of where I was a few short weeks ago and then look at where I am now it don't seem real. It is simply wonderful out here. The mountains are white with snow, bug banks of it. Flowers everywhere, birds nesting. Say what the hell do you people want to live back there for anyway. I once had an IDEA that I would like to live in a city amid the hurrying crowds but I am sure glad it died of solitary confinement. ¼

An analysis of Limbert's published essays, contained in the Limbert Collection at the Boise State University Albertson's Library, no doubt would reveal more about his style and commonplace topics.

Limbert died of a stroke in 1933 on his way to his critically ill mother's bedside after a speaking tour on the East Coast. His obituary in the Idaho Advertiser concluded: "Mr. Limbert was a genuine westerner. He was an authority on wild life and did a great deal to bring to the attention of countless thousands of easterners, the scenic attractions of the west. He was in the prime of life and in he death Idaho and the west, loses one of their most loyal friends."

Notes and Sources