BY TOM BUSSELBERG

Clipper News Editor

LAYTON — Cabela’s has made at least two visits to this city as it searches for potential sites for a new store, according to the mayor’s office.

The outdoor retailer has one location in Lehi, its only Utah outlet, but it is apparently is scouring the country for new spots to build stores.

“Our guys are out looking everywhere around the country,” said company spokesman Wes Remmer Tuesday afternoon.

“We haven’t made a formal announcement on anything in Layton or elsewhere,” he said.

“I really don’t know how strong a possibility it is” for Cabela’s to be coming to the county’s most populous city, Layton Mayor Steve Curtis said.

Company officials have eyed two sites, one near Davis Hospital and another on the city’s south side near its new Layton Park Interchange.

“They have shown interest in Northern Utah and Layton would naturally love to provide them that opportunity” for another store, Curtis said.

Former city economic development specialist Ben Hart met with them, the mayor said.

Layton is already home to tUtahs second Dick’s Sporting Goods store. It opened last fall in part of the old Mervyn’s space at the Layton Hills Mall.

Cabela’s was founded in 1961 “when Dick Cabela came up with a plan to sell fishing flies he purchased while at a furniture show in Chicago,” a company history said.

He soon formulated a free introductory offer of five hand-tied flies in national outdoor magazines, requiring customers to pay only 25 cents postage.

The business grew from Cabela’s kitchen table to his basement. A few years later, it moved to a vacant John Deere building in nearby Sidney, Neb., where the firm is now located.

There are 37 Cabela’s stores across the country and in Canada, and nine new stores have been announced.