Paul Bunyan Statue

The 31-foot Paul Bunyan statue on Main Street has greeted visitors to Bangor since 1959, when the city erected it to celebrate its 125th anniversary and to stake Bangor's claim as the legendary lumberjack's birthplace. He stands with an axe in one hand and a peavey — a logging tool for rolling logs in water — in the other, a reminder that Bangor was once the lumber capital of the world.

The statue now stands in front of the Cross Insurance Center arena, surrounded by parking and concrete rather than the riverside lumber yards that made the city's fortune. It is a quintessential piece of American roadside art — enormous, earnest, and a perfect photo opportunity. Children love it. Historians of the lumber trade will appreciate the setting on Main Street, which follows the route of the original waterfront commercial strip.

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Bangor's claim to be Paul Bunyan's birthplace is contested — Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan all make similar arguments — but Bangor erected its 31-foot fiberglass giant in 1959, on the city's 125th anniversary, partly to settle the argument by sheer weight of statue. At 3,700 pounds, it is one of the largest Paul Bunyan statues in the world.