The Coolidge examiner., 1931-08-07

solid trunk of an oak tree. The Tower of Pisa
lost it's perpendcularty by the weight of this
giant leaning against it."
Whole books have been written about Paul
Bunyan. the super lumberiack so of course he
gets considerable space in Here's Audacity!" :"
Most of the facts about his youth and his logging
operations on the Big Onion river in Michigan
are well known. But some of the other facts
about his life as given by Mr. Shay seem to be
new For instance after he used Babe, the Blue
Ok (Babe, you remember measured forty axe
handles and a plug of Star tobacco between the
eyes) to straighten out a winding logging road.
Paul discovered that he had fourteen miles of
road left over. SO he rolled up the fourteen
miles and sold it to the city of Chicago for a
boulevard And it is one of the shameful things
about that wicked city that they call it Michi-
gan boulevard in honor of the state from which
it came and not Paul Bunyan boulevard in honor
Of the greatest lumberjack that ever lived
Then there was the time that Jim Hill. the
builder of the Great Northern railroad decided
to build barbed wire fence along the right-of-
way to keep the tramps off his trains. So he
gave the job of building the 1,S00mile fence to
Paul Bunyan. He found that it was going
to take too long to get through with the work so
he sent up to Montana TO a who had
trained gOphers for two thousand post-hOe-dig
ging gophers Then he sent order to another
man who specialized in beavers and ordered five
hundred Of these animals. He set the beavers
to work cutting six-inch trees into six-foot
lengths and set the gOphers to work digging
holes "The gophers we're innocent and when
one had finished digging his hole he prepared
to make it his home. Then Paul would come
along with post in hand. drag the gopher
out Of his hole with one hand and shove the
post in There was nothing for the poor gopher
| to do hut haoiD
gophers got pretty mad but who cares what
gopher thinks?' Paul didn't and he got his
fence done in plenty of time.
AS for Tony Beaver in West Virginia they
will tell you that Tony who carries his log
ging operations on Eel river is as great a lum-
herman as Paul Bunyan. But logging wasn't
his only interest; he was also a grower of the
biggest watermelOns in the world which we're so
big that by whiting out the insides cutting
doors and windows and building fire places and
allowing the rnds to dry out in the sun, they
made wonderful houses.
AS for the other super Americans one is black
and the other is red There is John Henry, the
negro steel driving man who was so fast with
his 12-pOund hammer that he was known to wear
out two handles in one shift and he always had
to have boy with pail of cold water standing
| by so that he could keep his hammer cool But
when steam driven drills came on the market
John Henry declared that such new tangled in
ventions were not necessary. He said he could
beat a steam drill and in a contest that was
specially arranged he did beat it. But he killed
himself in doing it for after the contest was
over John Henry "laid down his hannah an
he died"
Then there is Kwasind the Hercules Of the
American Indians, of whom LOngfellow wrote in
Hiawatha. 1t Kwasind who filed his pipe
with tobacco kindIed with holt of IiOhtniD0
and then emptied the live Goals into the sea-
For three days he did this and on the fourth
day there rose up an island which is now known
as Nantucket island off the coast Of Massa-
chusetts. This and many other marves did
'the very strong man Kwasind he the strongest
of all mortals."
- (@ by Western Newspaper Unlonl