Paul Bunyan

Saturday, August 4, 2012

 

Have you wondered why North Dakota has so few trees? According to legend, Paul Bunyan and Babe, his big blue ox, wandered west from his logging camp in Minnesota one day. He tied his huge ax to the end of a long rope and swung it around in circles, single-handedly logging off acres of forest in just a few minutes. Then Paul took a two-ton maul and pounded every stump into the ground, thus preparing the land for bountiful wheat fields.

 

No one knows how many years Paul Bunyan stories such as these had been told in logging camps across the country, but this one first appeared in print in the Duluth, Minnesota, News Tribune on August 4, 1904.

 

Dakota Datebook written by Karen Horsley

 

 

Sources:

Duluth News Tribune, August 4, 1904

“Paul Bunyan,” www.voanews.com, June 10, 2006

“Paul Bunyan, an American Legend,” www.VisitBemidji.com