🎉 Paul Bunyan Day: Celebrating Oscoda’s Legendary Logger

On August 20, 1971, the small town of Oscoda threw a big party, the Paul Bunyan Festival. With pancakes stacked high, folklore flying thick, and a papier-mâché giant lumberjack at the center of it all. Oscodans were on a mission to stake their claim as the true birthplace of Paul Bunyan.

And they had receipts.

Oscoda’s claim rests on the first known published story of Paul Bunyan. The story written by journalist and former lumberjack James MacGillivray in the Oscoda Press on August 10, 1906. Titled “Round River,” the story was based on real-life French-Canadian logger Fabian Fournier. Fournier worked in Michigan logging camps after the Civil War. MacGillivray, inspired by tales spun around logging campfires, immortalized the larger-than-life Bunyan through colorful stories like this gem:

“They’d hacked her to fall to the north, and we’d hacked her to fall to the south, and there that blamed tree stood for a month or more, clean sawed through, but not knowin’ which way to drop ’til a windstorm came along and throwed her over.”

The story was later revised and published again in the Detroit News Tribune in 1910. From there, the Paul Bunyan legend spread like wildfire across America.

But Michigan had something no other place could match—documented origins.

Birthplace of a Legend

States like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Maine have all claimed Paul Bunyan as their own. Michigan made it official in 2006. The State of Michigan formally recognized Oscoda as the “true birthplace of the legend of Paul Bunyan as first set in ink by James MacGillivray.”

The tale grew taller still when Babe the Blue Ox joined the myth in 1914. Babe was thanks to a Minnesota lumber company’s advertising campaign. While Minnesota gave Paul a blue buddy, Michigan gave him a place to call home.

And home he has, with six towering Paul Bunyan statues across the state, each with its own unique backstory:

Where to Find Paul Bunyan in Northern Michigan

  • Oscoda – The OG Paul! This 13-foot-4-inch statue, once papier-mâchĂ© in a Detroit parade, now stands tall in Furtaw Field. It was joined in 2023 by a handcrafted Babe the Blue Ox made by artist Ann Rataj.
  • Ossineke – Home to the tallest Paul in the state, clocking in at 25 feet, 5 inches and standing alongside a 10-foot Babe. Originally roadside attractions in Spruce, they were moved in 2006 to their current perch on U.S. 23.
  • Alpena – A 28-foot Bunyan stands outside Alpena Community College, made from salvaged Kaiser auto parts and proudly painted in the college’s maroon and silver Lumberjack colors.
  • West Branch – Grab a burger at Lumber Jack Food & Spirits and take a selfie with the town’s resident giant Bunyan, a tribute to logger lore and roadside kitsch.
  • St. Ignace – At the base of Castle Rock, you’ll find a sitting Paul and Babe duo, one of Michigan’s most photographed roadside oddities.
  • Manistique – Once home to a 43-foot-tall plywood Bunyan (destroyed in a 1970s storm), Manistique rebuilt with a 15-foot fiberglass version now standing at the local Chamber of Commerce.

Pancakes, Plows, and the Power of Story

Paul Bunyan’s stories are American folklore at its finest: full of humor, exaggeration, and heart. Whether he’s digging out the Great Lakes for Babe’s bathwater, giving Michigan its mitten shape, or eating pancakes off a 150-foot griddle, Paul represents the imagination and grit of frontier life.

Oscoda’s 1971 Paul Bunyan Festival wasn’t just a day of celebration—it was a declaration: This is where the legend began. And thanks to storytellers like James MacGillivray, roadside sculptors, and proud Michiganders, that legend continues to grow.