Paul Bunyan and John Henry Week 14: American Folklore - Assignments - Reading - Resources - Images

Resources

Paul Bunyan

You can see historical photos of the Red River Lumber Company at the Steam in the Woods Logging website. The McCloud California Rails homepage provides some history of the Red River Lumber Company and its expansion into California is available. Westwood California, the Red River Lumber "company town," still has an annual Paul Bunyan Festival.

• Boy Scouts can earn a Paul Bunyan Woodsman Badge.
• Paul Bunyan, together with John Henry, Mighty Casey, and Pecos Bill, was one of the "American Folk Heroes" stamp series issued in 1996.
• You can visit the Paul Bunyan Logging Camp in Eau Claire, Wisconsin or the Paul Bunyan Forest Camp in Redding, California.
• You can hike the Paul Bunyan Trail in Brainerd, Minnesota, and visit the Paul Bunyan Amusement Center (although it's days are numbered!)
• You can eat at Paul Bunyan's Northwoods Cook Shanty in Minocqua, Wisconsin.
• You can see a 31-foot high statue of Paul Bunyan in Bangor, Maine.
• You can watch the Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show.
• June 28 is Paul Bunyan Day.
• Disney made an animated Paul Bunyan short film.

John Henry

The best place to get started is at the John Henry: The Steel-Driving Man website at iBiblio, a digital public library online.

There are also valuable resources at the NPR: John Henry site, and you can listen to the entire NPR segment about the origins of the "John Henry" songs.

There is a video clip of the 1946 "puppetoon" about John Henry that is available online.

John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead is a novel set in Talcott, West Virginia that moves back and forth between the present day and the times of John Henry (amazon.com).

Polly Ann and John Henry (a theater script, one act): from Multicultural Folktales: Readers Theatre for Elementary Students.

And of course there is a Disney animated short film about John Henry, which is packaged with other Disney short films about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and Casey Jones.

John Henry was included in a 1996 US Post Office "Folk Heroes" stamp series with Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and "Casey at the Bat."