/Red River Lumber Co. Gives Promi- nence to Exploits of Paul Bunyan

One of the most interesting as well as one of the most cffective pieces of advertising literature issued by a lumber eoncern, or by any other concern for that matter, is the booklet on "Paul Bunyan and His Big BIue Ox," published by the Red River Lumber company.

PauI Bunyan stories have been circulated by the lumberrnen and loggers of this country ever since lumbering became an organized industry, and every one errer connecied rvith a logging camp has heard many of the absurd tales of Paul Bunyan and his wonderful prowess told and re-told many a time, but this is the first attempt to collect themor the best of them, at any rate, in one publication.

The best authorities never recounted PauI Bunyan's exploits in nanative form, says the Red River booklet. They made their statements more impressive by dropping them in an off-hand way, as if in reference to events of common knowledge. In that way the stories have been handed down frorn one crew of loggers to another and have been added to and embellished wherever an imaginative genius could set his mind to work.

Paul Bunyan is credited, of course, with some of the most notable construction work ever achieved in the great lumber regions of the West and Northwest, but long before that he was making himself a notable figure, first in Maine and New Hampshire, and afterwards in Michigan, $-isconsin and Minnesota.

His first big job in the Northwest was digging the channel for the Columbia River. Afterwards he dredged out Puget 'Found and built Mount Rainier, using the earth and rock that he took out of the bed of the sound. to pile up the mountain.

When the Red River Lumber company began opening up their forests of Sugar Pine and California White Pine in 1913 they sent for Paul, and he came and" establised his headquarters at Westwood. He has been around that part of the country ever since. In fact he has become so thorough- ly identified with that work that the Red River I.lumber Irumber company has adopted his picture as their trademark.

So the report that PauI dug San Francisco bay and built the Golden Gate seems to be erroneous, as it appears he never was in California previous to the time he came to ,'Westwood. Likewise, he cannot be credited with erecting the falls of the Yosemite.

Since coming to California Paul has recounted many of his early-day exploits and chuckled over some amusing incidents as related in the Red River booklet.

In the Winter that Paul had the contract for logging off North Dakota he hauled water for his ice roads from the Great Lakes. One day when Brimstone Bill, one of his boss loggers, had Babe, the Big Blue Ox, hitched to one of the old water tanks and was making his early morning trip, the tank sprung a leak when they were half way across Minnesota. Bill saved himself from drowning by climbing Babe's tail but all efforts to patch up the tank were in vain so the tank was aba4d.oned and replaced by a new one. That was the beginning of the Mississippi river.

Feeding Paul Bunyan's crews was a complicated job. At no two camps were conditions the same. The winter he logged off North Dakota he had 300 cooks making pan-cakes for the Seven Axemen and the Chore-boy. At headquarters on the Big Onion river he had one cook and 462 cookies feeding a crew so big that Paul himself never knew within several hundred either way how many men he actually had.

The Lay of the Een

The hen stood on the back-yard fence, Whence all the rest had fled; Her feathers all bedraggled were And dew was on her head.

" Oh, master, dear, must I stay here

"And try to lay an egg?

"I'm cold and wet and I shall get

"Rheumatics in each leg.

"I'd do my best, without a nest,

" To lay an egg or two I

"Though I hate to lay a 'soft boiled' for

"A 'hard boiled' chap like you.

" 'Twould only take a little stake

"For you to make a house

"'Where f would fear no winter drear

"Nor wet nor pip nor louse.

"Just keep me dry and warm, and I

" Can d.o what I should do.

"But if you don't-in either case,

"I ought to 'lay for you."'