Introduction:

Many people think that the stories of Paul Bunyan are great American folklore stories. These stories are fun to hear and even more fun to tell. Yet the real origin of these stories is that they were created by a logging company that was located in Minnesota in the early twentieth century. This logging company was named Red River Lumber Company. Paul Bunyan was part of a marketing campaign for the company. They created Paul Bunyan to be a mighty logger, who was bigger than anyone and could accomplish anything. The legends of Paul's logging accomplishments represented the extensive clearing of trees by Red River. In the stories Paul was not alone. He had a full logging crew and a big blue ox named Babe to handle the pulling duties involved.
I have invented a character named Eugene Redwood. As you will see, Eugene was a reporter who followed Paul around the country. Eugene is going to report on Paul's accomplishments as if they were fact. Now let's meet Eugene.

Hello, my name is Eugene Redwood. I was a reporter who followed Paul Bunyan and his crew around the country while they completed different logging jobs. I have watched Paul for years and have heard many stories about him. Paul was a sight to be seen. As a young baby, Paul was already almost ten times as big as kids ten times his age. He could drink more milk in one day than a whole farm could produce in one week.

In Paul's early childhood years, he began to get into mischief. Anything that was made of wood, Paul wanted to cut. He cut the backs off of chairs, the legs off of tables and even once cut his neighbor's wooden leg in half.

When Paul became a young man, he set out to start logging. Everywhere that Paul went, people followed and stared in amazement. As Paul's logging tasks grew, so did his crew. He had the biggest men, the biggest axes, and the biggest animals known to man. With a crew this size, Paul could clear a forest in half a day. The only problem that I could see with his crew was that it took an army of cooks to feed them. I once saw a crew of two hundred men cook for twelve hours straight and Paul ate the entire meal in one bite. That was why Paul had to hire three cooking crews around the clock.

Even though he was so big and strong, Paul was as nice as could be. Paul was also a very smart man. He could make something out of nothing. Because he was always on the move, Paul had a hard time finding someone to make and keep up his tools. He was always inventing a new way to make a bigger and stronger axe, and also new ways of sharpening his axe. He was a pioneer of pioneers.
There are three stories that I can remember well.

The first story is Paul Bunyan the Hunter. When Paul Buynan was a hunter, he faced all kinds of obstacles. These were not normal obstacles that an ordinary person could overcome. These obstacles required smarts, which Paul had a ton of.

The next story is about Babe, the Big Blue Ox. In this story, you will see how big Paul's pulling team was. The story also tells you what a big job it was to feed and maintain them. The third and final story that I will tell is about Paul the Craftsman. Paul had to invent news ways of doing jobs and also new tools all the time.

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