Minnesota History: Ad man turned Paul Bunyan into a folklore icon

William Barlow Laughead dropped out of high school and went to work as a lumberjack and cook in Minnesota's North Woods in the early 1900s. But a career switch from lumbering to advertising — and a well-connected cousin — changed his course.

Still largely unknown 66 years after his death, Laughead helped popularize perhaps the biggest name in American folklore: Paul Bunyan.

Tall tales of Bunyan's exploits date back to the lumber camps of the mid-1800s. Today, images of Bunyan statues fill Minnesota family photo albums — standing tall in onetime lumber boomtowns Bemidji, Brainerd and Akeley.

"That lovable Paul, by all accounts, was likely first born in the mind of William B. Laughead, an advertiser for the Red River Lumber Company," writes author Willa Hammit Brown. Her new book — "Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth, and the American Lumberjack" — will be released in 2025 by the University of Minnesota Press.

William Laughead's 1922 drawing of Paul Bunyan appeared on the title page of "The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan." At 17, Laughead (pronounced "law-ed") quit school and headed for the lumber camps — working from 1900 to 1908 as a cook, surveyor and timber cruiser. His cousin, Archie Walker, was the youngest son of lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker (1840-1928) — namesake of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and founder of the city's public library.

The 1900 Census lists Laughead as a laborer living in Akeley, roughly halfway between Brainerd and Bemidji. Now a town of 400, Akeley's railroad depot opened in 1899 just a year before Laughead arrived. Archie's father and Healy Akeley started their Red River Lumber Co. in 1893, building the state's largest sawmill there in 1902. Akeley's population nearly doubled to 3,500 by 1908 as Red River became the nation's third-largest lumber company.

While working in the Minnesota woods, "It was [Laughead's] delight to draw from the lumberjacks the stories about Paul Bunyan," a 1935 Minneapolis Journal said, "and being of an artistic flair he put on paper his conception of this novel character."

A postcard circa 1930 shows Paul Bunyan helping thaw Lake Superior ice during the year "Minnesota had winter all summer." Says the writing below: "'Twas the melting of one of those huge blocks of ice which formed Lake Bemidji, 200 miles away."