Babe the Blue Ox - Bemidji, MN
Posted by: 
lenron
N 47° 28.227 W 094° 52.754
15T E 358391 N 5259157
Statue of Babe the Blue Ox next to Paul Bunyan in Bemidji, MN.
Waymark Code: WMDA9D
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 12/13/2011
Views: 10
Standing on the shores of Lake Bemidji, just after the Mississippi River starts on it's long journey to the Gulf of Mexico stands Babe the Blue Ox. Babe and nearby Paul Bunyan greet visitors to the area and countless folks have had their photo taken with the pair.
Babe was built in 1937 by the Bemidji Rotary Club. The Rotary Club was asked to build a model of Babe and a committe was formed to create the statue. Babe is modeled after real life oxen in the area.
There is also a Rotary plaque at the base of Babe.
The visit Bemidji website details the story of Babe and Paul and it includes the following:
The ox was built with a skeleton of wooden ribs, sawed and nailed together at a local boat company plant. After the structure of wood was made, it was covered with wire lath. On top of this, was stretched a padding of fiber and wool, as was used in insulating refrigerators. Canvas was stretched over this frame.
A smoking pipe, built into the nostrils, created the impression the ox was breathing in the cold air. The eyes were made of automobile tail lights and were connected to a battery. The horns, made of tin, are 14 feet across.
Babe was mounted on a one and a half ton International truck and was used in parades and shows to promote Bemidji as a tourist destination. After traveling thousands of miles around the country, the damage to the statue was so great it was placed permanently beside the statue of Paul Bunyan on the lakeshore of beautiful Lake Bemidji. The canvas and insulating material 'hide' was removed and a concrete finish put over the metal lath and painted blue. Thousands of visitors come all year around to see and be photographed with the historic statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox. The National Parks Service recognized these statues an official cultural resource worthy of preservation, adding them to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988
Read more about the pair at the visitbemidji website (
visit link)