Vacationing families visited roadside stops across the north country to see statues of the big lug and take pictures of him with the kids. Soon Paul Bunyan and Babe souvenirs, trinkets, and novelty items cluttered Northwoods gift shops and tourist traps everywhere.
Comics and books sensationalized the hero’s astonishing feats and adventures as a logger. Laughead embellished and illuminated the old loggers’ tales, capturing the imagination of American adults and children with the heroic logger’s fanciful stories and epic achievements.Īfter the initial advertising campaign, demand increased for more stories about the Northwoods hero. The Red River Lumber Company asked Laughead to create an advertising campaign to promote sales of their California Pine - “the largest pines that ever grew.” He chose to tell the story of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. In 1914, the lore became a legend at the hand of the creative copywriter and illustrator William B. The man, the myth, the advertising character Paul cleared vast swaths of forest in short order. Let’s take a deeper look at the origins and history of Paul and his fascinating tale. Today we hold the mythic ideal of Paul Bunyan right alongside famous figures like Johnny Appleseed and even Santa Claus. It wasn’t until an ink-slinging copywriter put pen to paper for a lumber company in the 1900s that Paul’s life began to capture the public’s imagination in a big way. The legend of Paul Bunyan is as tall as a giant sequoia and as wide as the American continent.įrom Maine to California, fanciful tales of a giant lumberjack were bandied about in logging camps from as far back as the mid-19th century. Known for: Giant lumberjack, super-human strength, flannel shirts, a friend of a blue ox, tourism mascot, burley Northwoods legend Nationality: American, although Canada may have something to say about that. Weight: His footsteps cause permanent indents in the earth
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