The account of Paul Bunyan , the giant logger , is one of the most enduringtall talesin North America . The folktale is a favourite in tike ’s classrooms and is commemorate in cartoon and tourer attraction all over the United States . But was this based on a real person ? Before we answer that , here ’s a quick refresher on his story .
concord to legend , Paul Bunyan was so huge at giving birth , it ask five exhausted storks to pitch him to his parent . When Bunyan was a mere week old , he already jibe into his father ’s clothes . Junior Bunyan downed 40 bowling ball of porridge a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , they say , and received a large , blue ox appoint Babe for his first natal day .
Bunyan grew up to become a skilled faller , with Babe — as outsized an ox as Bunyan was a humankind — always at his side . As a logging team , the two were unbeatable , capable to clear forest with awing speed . At one period , Bunyan headed to the south and created theGrand Canyonsimply by hang back his axe behind him . And Babe ? Well , she tromped all around Minnesota ’s logging state . As she did so , her pace take with water behind her , forming the country ’s famed 10,000 lakes .
Of course , these are all literally and figuratively tall tales . But are they based in any fact ? Perhaps !
The Real Paul Bunyan
Some historian trust Paul Bunyan was based on a real person — a Gallic Canadian lumberman named Fabian Fournier . Fournier , born in Quebec around 1845 , moved to Michigan after the Civil War to take advantage of the high - paying logging jobs that were readily available . His brawn and 6 - foot ( 1.8 - meter ) top — quite notable in an era when the mean American male person suffer a mere 5 feet ( 1.5 meters ) grandiloquent — made him quite daunting , as did his drinking and brawling . There was even a rumor that he had two sets of tooth , add to his brute mystique [ source : Pruitt ] .
Fournier , aka Saginaw Joe , decease in 1875 during a combat in Bay City , Michigan , a violent town where lumberjacks go to party after every payday . His so-called killer , who excise him in the back of the head with a mallet , was acquitted in a subsequent trial that drew much attention , helping disperse the fable of Paul Bunyan to lumberjacking hotspots in Michigan , Wisconsin , Minnesota and beyond .
At some point , Bunyan ’s story became intertwined with that of another Gallic Canadian war hero by the name of Bon Jean . The tales of Bon Jean and Fabian Fournier combined to make one ferocious , acrobatic , reasoning lumber jacket by the name of Paul Bunyan , with " Bunyan " believed to be a melding of " Bon Jean " [ source : Browning ] .
As the 19th century draw to a close , Paul Bunyan tales appeared to have propagate to every logging camp in North America . And with every retelling of the story , the lumber jacket greatly embellished them . Yet despite the popularity of Paul Bunyan among the lumberjacking residential area , the general world knew nothing of old Saginaw Joe [ informant : Chamberlain ] .
A Legend Is Born
The first mention of Paul Bunyan to people outside of the lumberjacking world amount in 1910 , when James MacGillivray penned the first of the " Logging Tall Tales " serial that would become democratic across the nation . The piece ran in the Detroit News - Tribune .
Then , in 1914 , the Red River Lumber Company stepped in . The business , which sold its wood to local lumberyards through a national distribution meshing , developed an advertising military campaign for its new mill in California . As part of the campaign , the business hired a valet name William Laughead , a former lumberjack , to create a serial publication of engaging pamphlets featuring Bunyan . In the leaflet , Laughead further exaggerated Bunyan ’s stories and added to them , but the pamphlet were largely ignored .
Despite the fact that the Bunyan pamphlets flunk in 1914 , the company published a retool variant of them via a 1922 booklet titled " The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan . " As before , the booklet was intended for lumber industry worker . But the Kansas City Star happened to publish a drawn-out review of the booklet , introducing Bunyan to the masses . And the rest , as they say , is history .
The American public quickly became enchant with the monumental lumberjack and his colourful bovine companion , especially kids . shortly Bunyan was the subject of comics , al-Qur’an , an light opera and even poems by legendary poets such as Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg . And numerous towns began take him as their own , let in Bemidji , Minnesota , and Bangor , Maine , the latter of which boasts to have self-command of his birth certificate .
Today , many towns apply yearly fete in his accolade . you could catch a Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show in states like Wisconsin and Florida , where lumberjack and jills compete in natural action such as axe - fox and log - rolling . And June 28 is now known as National Paul Bunyan Day , making Bunyan one of America ’s quintessential folklore heroes [ sources : Brittanica , Yang ] .
