Paul Bunyan

Scholars Say He is the Only American Myth.

Paul Bunyan is the hero of lumbercamp whoppers that have been handed down for generations.  These stories, never heard outside the haunts of the lumberjack until recent years, are now being collected by learned educators and literary authorities who declare that Paul Bunyan is “the only American myth.”

The best authorities never recounted Paul Bunyan’s exploits in narrative form.  They made their statements more impressive by dropping them casually, in an off hand way, as if in reference. to actual events of common knowledge.  To overawe the greenhorn in the bunkshanty, or the paper-collar stiffs and home guards in the saloons, a group of lumberjacks would remember meeting each other in the camps of Paul Bunyan.  With painful accuracy they established the exact time and place, “on the Big Onion the winter of the blue snow” or “at Shot Gunderson’s camp on the Tadpole the year of the sourdough drive.”  They elaborated on the old themes and new stories were born in lying contests where the heights of extemporaneous invention were reached.

In these conversations the lumberjack often took on the mannerisms of the French Canadian.  This was apparently done without special intent and no reason for it can be given except for a similarity in the mock seriousness of their statements and the anti-climax of the bulls that were made, with the braggadocio of the habitant.  Some investigators trace the origin of Paul Bunyan to Eastern Canada.  Who can say?

Paul Bunyan came to Westwood, California, in 1913 at the suggestion of some of the most prominent loggers and lumbermen in the country.  When the Red River Lumber Company announced their plans for opening up their forests of Sugar Pine and California White Pine, friendly advisors shook their heads and said,

“Better send for Paul Bunyan.”

Apparently here was the job for a Superman, — quality-and-quantity-production on a big scale and great engineering difficulties to be overcome.  Why not Paul Bunyan?  This is a White Pine job and here in the High Sierras the winter snows lie deep, just like the country where Paul grew up.  Here are trees that dwarf the largest “cork pine” of the Lake States and many new stunts were planned for logging, milling and manufacturing a product of supreme quality — just the job for Paul Bunyan.

The Red River people had been cutting White Pine in Minnesota for two generations; the crews that came west with them were old heads and every one knew Paul Bunyan of old.  Paul had followed the White Pine from the Atlantic seaboard west to the jumping-off place in Minnesota, why not go the rest of the way?

Paul Bunyan’s picture had never been published until he joined Red River and this likeness, first issued in 1914 is now the Red River trademark.  It stands for the quality and service you have the right to expect from Paul Bunyan.