The Legend of the Hodag

Kathi was wondering about Hodags. Well, you asked the right person! Apparently a lumberjack named Eugene Shepard who was from Rhinelander decided to come up with a story about a fierce beast which is depicted with a long spine of spikes, a giant mouth full of jagged teeth, 2 pointy horns, and razor sharp claws. It first appeared in 1893 I'm guessing he's trying to rival the legend of Babe the Blue Ox, but I'm not so sure that hodags ever got the acclaim of the blue ox. Poor Gene! They even made it the subject of many postcard images, I assume to attract people to the area???

This is a link to some of the history of the hodag.

http://www.rhinelanderchamber.com/history2.htm


I will add a picture later, I need to locate the one I took of the beastly hodag visciously attacking my poor unsuspecting children the summer before last!



Here's that picture I promised. Do you see how that mangy critter is sneeking up on them? Run, kids!

This is the statue outside of the Chamber of commerce. Even though Gene described it as having short, black hair, area artists seem to prefer o depict it as being green. You can see many renditions of the hodag scattered throughout town.