Celebrated Paul Bunyan, Steeped in Northern Michigan Culture | News, Sports, Jobs

Northern Michigan is home to three statues of Paul Bunyan, two of which are located along the US-23 Heritage Highway.

Travelers heading north along the Heritage Route will first pass a statue of Paul Bunyan at Furtaw Field in Oscoda. About 40 miles further north, a statue of Paul and Babe the Blue Ox is located at the southwest corner of US-23 and Nicholson Hill Road.

A third statue of Paul Bunyan, formerly known as Kaiser Paul, has been repainted and now stands at Alpena Community College where he serves as a lumberjack mascot for the college’s sports teams.

Oscoda was recognized by the Michigan House of Representatives in 2005 as the birthplace of Paul Bunyan with an official proclamation, after journalist James MacGillivray in 1906 published stories about the lumberjack in the Oscoda News.

News photo by Crystal Nelson TOP: The lumberjack outside Park Arena at Alpena Community College was previously a statue of Paul Bunyan called Kaiser Paul.

MacGillivray’s stories are based on French-Canadian lumberjack Fabian Fournier, who moved to Michigan after the Civil War where he worked as a lumberjack for the HM Loud Company, according to the proclamation.

Fournier was considered extremely tall, strong, and the best lumberjack in the state. The proclamation says Fournier was renamed Paul Bunyan based on a mythical character of the same name from the French-Canadian Papineau rebellion of 1837.

Oscoda further embraced his love for Paul Bunyan by hosting his annual Paul Bunyan Days, where festival-goers can attend a chainsaw carving contest, enter a lumberjack and Jill lookalike contest, and enter a beard contest. . This year’s festival is scheduled for September 17-19 at Furtaw Field in Oscoda.

The Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Ossineke were originally located at the Look Out Inn.

Sanborn Township Supervisor Ken Gauthier said the Ox was built first and Walter Hayden and Paul Domke worked together to build Paul Bunyan. Domke was the folk artist who built the dinosaur statues at Dinosaur Gardens while Hayden owned Hayden’s Acres, a tourist attraction known for its wigwam.

Courtesy Photo / The Oscoda Press Paul Bunyan is pictured at Furtaw Field in Oscoda ahead of Oscoda Rock Fest.

Gauthier said that when the township learned that the owners wanted to sell the statue, the statue was moved to Ossineke.

“It was just something that was part of our heritage that we wanted to preserve,” said Gauthier.

The Alpena Community College lumberjack mascot outside Park Arena is a symbol of the region’s forest heritage. The lumberjack was once a statue of Paul Bunyan, known as Kaiser Paul, and was created for the owner of Gas and Eat store Paul Bunyan in Gaylord.

Kaiser Paul is almost entirely made up of fenders and hoods from Kaiser automobiles, which were made in the USA from around 1946 to the mid-1960s.

In 1998, ACC President Don Newport arranged for Kaiser Paul to move to the college and the statue was repaired by the college’s auto body program. It received a new coat of paint in 2004.