Logging was big business in early Brainerd. It is said that many towns were built from lumber cut from trees around Brainerd. Lumberjacks came from all over the country to work here. At nights around the fire, they would tell stories of a giant lumberjack named Paul Bunyan. Paul lived and worked in the Brainerd Lakes Area with his pet blue ox, Babe. As a baby, Paul's baby carriage was a lumber wagon. He ate 40 bowls of porridge a day -- just as a snack! As a grown man, people say Paul was so big that he used wagon wheels for buttons on his red and black plaid shirt.

Together they shared adventures and accomplished great feats of strength and cunning. The many lakes in the Brainerd Lakes Area are also thought to be made by Paul dragging his axe and Babe's footprints. Their tracks filled in with water and became lakes.

There are lots of stories about Paul and Babe and when you come to the Brainerd Lakes Area, you will probably be able to hear a whole bunch more.
Click on one of the stories listed here to read more about Paul Bunyan and Babe.

Paul Bunyan and the Brainerd Water Tower
How Paul Got Babe, the Big Blue Ox
Sharpening the Axes
The Year of "Two Winters"
Paul's Friends, the Axemen
Paul's Ants
Lucy, the Purple Cow
Ole, the Blacksmith
Paul's Cook -- Sourdough Sam
Paul's Pancake Griddle

Paul Bunyan and the Brainerd Water Tower
The Brainerd water tower has been known to be used as Paul Bunyan's knife handle, his golf tee, his flaslight and his hitching post for Babe.

How Paul got Babe, the Big Blue Ox
As a child, Paul played with an axe and a crosscut saw like other children played with toys. On his first birthday, his father gave him a pet blue ox named Babe. Babe grew to be seven axe handles wide (just between his eyes). Babe "snacked" on 30 bales of hay.

Sharpening the Axes
No grindstones were large enough to grind the axes Paul used, so he sharpened them against large stones as they rolled down the hill.

The Year of "Two Winters"
A long time ago, there was a winter that was so long and cold, and the snow was so deep that people thought it lasted TWO winters long. Paul had to dig down to the trees, so they could continue to log. Boiling coffee would freeze before the men drank it. When Paul's logging friends spoke, their words froze in mid-air. When the words thawed in the spring, there was terrible chatter for weeks.

Paul's Friends, the Axemen
Paul liked to work with big men (like him). His most famous friends were the seven "axemen." Each of these men was over six feet tall (sitting down) and weighed over 300 pounds each. They were all named Elmer. When Paul called "Elmer!", all seven men came running. The year of the two winters, the axemen grew beards to the ground and wrapped up in them to keep warm. (When they cut their beards in the spring, the whiskers were stacked like hay and sold for mattress padding.)

Paul's Ants
When Paul was short of help, he trained some enormous ants to do all kinds of logging work. They weighed over 2,000 pounds! The ants did the work of 50 ordinary men. In the winter, Paul had them fitted with warm mittens to keep them from hibernating.

Lucy, the Purple Cow
Lucy was Paul's championship milking cow. Lucy was content as long as the grass was green, so Paul fitted her with green glasses to make the snow look like grass. In the year of the two winters, it got so cold that Lucy's milk turned to ice cream before it hit the pail. (That was the winter that Paul had his first double-decker ice cream cone.)

Ole, the Blacksmith
Ole, the Blacksmith, was the only man who could shoe Babe, the blue ox. Every time he made shoes for Babe, they had to open a new iron mine. One time, Ole carried a pair of Babe's shoes and they were so heavy he sunk into the ground down to his knees. In his spare time, Ole punched the holes in the donuts for Paul's cook.

Paul's Cook -- Sourdough Sam
Sourdough Sam fed Paul and the axemen. He made everything -- except the coffee -- out of sourdough. Once, a wagonload of pork and beans pulled by a strong team of ox fell through the ice on their way to deliver Sam his groceries. Sam pulled the ox out and built fires around the lake. The water in the lake began to boil, making a giant serving of bean soup!

Paul's Pancake Griddle
Paul's men ate many, many pancakes. Ole made a giant griddle to cook the pancakes. It was so large, you could barely see the other side. Paul's cook, Sourdough Sam, hired 50 men to help grease the pan to cook the pancakes. Sam tied pork fat to the men's feet and asked them to skate around on the giant griddle to make sure the pancakes wouldn't stick when they were cooking. The pancake batter was mixed up in large wooden barrels. Luckily, Sam was a big, strong man, so he (and only he) was able to flip the pancakes and get them to the table for the hungry men to eat.

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