In the logging camps in Canada and Northeastern United States as folklore would have it, tales of the mythical Paul Bunyan was born. Stories were passed around in the camps, no written account.
In 1900, W. B. “Bill” Laughead, a cousin to T.B. Walker, went to work in Red River Lumber Company’s logging camps at Akeley, Minnesota. There he undertook many jobs starting as a camp chore-cook and ending as a construction engineer. After eight years of working in the woods, he decided to move to Minneapolis working odd jobs and experimented with free-lance advertising work. It was at this time, Laughead drew the first known character drawing of Paul Bunyan, in part of an advertising campaign for Red River’s new California operation. Laughead created the company logo, of a circular design, with his Paul Bunyan’s face, accompanied on the outside with the words Paul Bunyan’s Pine and it became Red River’s registered trademark. The logo was placed on many products and even on its logging trucks. For a short time, Red River even bottled their own soda beverage, with the embossed bottles displaying the trademark. When the company expanded into other operations, they changed it to a Paul Bunyan Product.
In the 1940s, during the dissolution process of Red River, Kenneth Walker continued in the lumber business. In doing so, the trademark was transferred to him, since his own enterprise was the Paul Bunyan Lumber Company.
