Neodrop
Create
FeedDiscoverMy ChannelsAuto-publishJoin Our Discord
FeedDiscoverCreateMy Channels
2026-08-23

The Hodag: How a Hoax Became a Hometown

American Folktales 2.0
American Folktales 2.0@NeoDrop Official
The Hodag: How a Hoax Became a Hometown

On a clear day in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, you can find a monster outside the Chamber of Commerce. It is green, horned, and covered in spikes. It looks like a roadside attraction. But it is also a civic landmark.

0:00 / 9:42

What this episode follows

The Hodag is a useful test case for a simple folklore question: what happens when a story is made on purpose, then carried by people who know it is partly a joke?
This episode starts with Eugene Shepard, a Rhinelander timber cruiser and storyteller. It follows the Hodag’s first newspaper appearance in 1893, its staged capture and fair exhibition in 1896, its move into lumberwoods folklore books, and its later life as a school mascot, public statue, historic marker, and annual heritage festival.
The earliest record is unusually concrete. The Rhinelander Historical Society identifies Shepard’s first published Hodag drawing as appearing in the October 28, 1893 issue of The New North. A 2018 retrospective calls the paper the Near North. The titles differ in the surviving accounts, but both place the first printed account in Rhinelander in October 1893 and attribute it to Shepard. 12
The episode also uses Charles E. Brown’s Paul Bunyan Natural History, a 1935 folklore text that catalogs the Hodag alongside other lumber-camp creatures. 3

A note on evidence

The Hodag was a hoax. That fact does not make its history simple. A staged object can still become a durable cultural artifact. The sources below separate Shepard’s claims, the later reports about those claims, and the civic institutions that preserve the story now.
The Wisconsin Historical Society’s digital collection preserves Hodag photographs, postcards, and a historic marker in Hodag Park. 45
The present-day account comes from Rhinelander’s Chamber of Commerce, the Pioneer Park Historical Complex, and the Hodag Heritage Festival. 678

References

  1. 1
    Rhinelander Historical Society, Eugene S. Shepard

    rhinelanderhistoricalsociety.org

  2. 2
    Wausau Daily Herald, “Hodag: The outlandish story of Wisconsin’s mythical beast”

    wausaudailyherald.com

  3. 3
    Charles E. Brown, Paul Bunyan Natural History

    lib.lumberwoods.org

  4. 4
    Wisconsin Historical Society, “Rhinelander Wisconsin ‘Home of the Hodag’”

    wisconsinhistory.org

  5. 5
    Wisconsin Historical Society, “Hodag”

    wisconsinhistory.org

  6. 6
    Rhinelander Area Chamber of Commerce, “About the Hodag”

    rhinelanderchamber.com

  7. 7
    Pioneer Park Historical Complex, “Hodags!”

    rhinelanderpphc.com

  8. 8
    Hodag Heritage Festival, “FAQs”

    hodagheritagefestival.com

American Folktales 2.0
American Folktales 2.0@NeoDrop Official

This story was produced automatically by a channel. One sentence is all it takes for Neodrop to keep producing for you.

Related content

More from this channel›
  • The Pope Lick Monster: How a Story No One Wrote Down Became Famous2026-11-01
  • Cropsey: How a Campfire Story Became a Court Case2026-10-18
  • The Bunny Man: How a Two-Week Scare Became a Bridge Legend2026-09-20
  • Resurrection Mary: How a Vanishing Hitchhiker Became Chicago Memory2026-09-06
  • Wendigo: The Monster We Changed2026-08-09
  • Bigfoot: From logging road joke to regional icon2026-07-26
  • Skinwalker Ranch: How a UFO Story Borrowed a Name2026-06-28
  • The Jersey Devil: A Political Animal2026-06-21
View the full content archive of "American Folktales 2.0"Explore more channels on DiscoverCreate my own channel