Rhinelander, Wisconsin -
Home of the Hodag

Home of the Hodag

Elusive vicious creature -- a lumber town makes hay with a beloved local monster. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Home of the Hodag

Next time you're in the North Woods of Wisconsin, check out the Hodags up in Rhinelander. We stopped by there this sommer, and it was a semi-entertaining couple hours trip. The Hodag is a strange local attraction, there are a couple of them up there. It's a wooden fake beast. The other interesting attraction in Rhinelander is a semi-large logging and train museum, along with a couple small museums on the property. [Brian Wolf, 12/05/1999]

[RA: The Hodag, scourge of the northern woods, is FAKE? Says who? The Hodag is seven feet long, 30 inches tall, first seen in 1896 when local Gene Shepard snapped a photo. Tusks, razorsharp claws, pointy horned spine . . . lumberjacks cornered it in a cave and knocked it out with a chloroform sponge on a pole. Today, Hodag banners flutter from street poles downtown, and a Hodag statue stands in town. Not sure if it's still around, but a stuffed "replica" could be seen at the Chamber of Commerce and the Logging Museum.]