Johnny Kaw is a fictional

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

settler and the subject of a number of Paul Bunyan-esque

tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it ...

s about the settling of the territory. The legend of Johnny Kaw was created in 1955 by George Filinger, a professor of

horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

, to celebrate the centennial of

Manhattan, Kansas Manhattan is a city in and the county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States, although the city extends into Pottawatomie County, Kansas, Pottawatomie County. It is located in northeastern Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big ...

. The stories were initially printed in the city newspaper, '' The Manhattan Mercury'', during the centennial and later collected into a self-published book by Filinger, who created Kaw to be Kansas' answer to other heroes like Bunyan and Pecos Bill. Elmer Tomasch of the Kansas State University Art Department provided ink drawings to illustrate the stories and the book. Filinger's stories related how Johnny Kaw created the Kansas landscape, geography and pioneer trails. Kaw was said to have dug the

Kansas River The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a meandering river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is potentially the southwestern most part of the Missouri River drainage, which is sometimes in turn the northwesternmost portion of ...

Valley, planted wheat, invented

sunflower The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a species of large annual forb of the daisy family Asteraceae. The common sunflower is harvested for its edible oily seeds, which are often eaten as a snack food. They are also used in the pr ...

s, and grown giant potatoes. Kaw even controlled the weather, lopping the funnels off tornadoes and wringing out the clouds to end droughts. His pets were the mascots for the two state universities: a wildcat and a jayhawk, who enjoyed a good fight. The

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors (severe drought) and hum ...

was said to be a result of their fights. Filinger's book was not republished after 1969, but Kansas author Jerri Garretson released a children's picture book about Johnny Kaw in 1997. Her book was illustrated by another KSU art instructor, Diane A. Dollar. A color edition of the book was published in September 2011 and the original version was included in the 2008 anthology ''Kansas Tall Tales''.

Statue

A statue of Johnny Kaw holding a

scythe A scythe (, rhyming with ''writhe'') is an agriculture, agricultural hand-tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It was historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains before they underwent the process of ...

stands in Manhattan City Park, Kansas . Three small statues were created before the large one was erected in City Park. Mrs. Walter O’Neill of Manhattan sculped the first one for the centennial. It was featured in City Park during the 1955 Centennial, but vandals beheaded it. It was then moved to a farm, where someone backed a wagon over it. The statue seen today was built in 1966, eleven years after the Manhattan Centennial celebration that inspired George Filinger to write the story of Johnny Kaw. George Filinger worked hard to promote the statue’s construction and donated a large share of the required money. The statue cost approximately $7,000, far exceeding the estimates of $3,000 to $3,500. Local citizens donated the money required, hoping that the statue would establish Johnny Kaw as a local legend and prove to be a

roadside attraction A roadside attraction is a feature along the side of a road meant to attract tourists. In general, these are places one might stop on the way to somewhere, rather than being a destination. They are frequently advertised with billboard (advertis ...

. The statue is constructed of concrete over a steel beam framework. The design was intended to withstand wind and weather and be easy to maintain. The statue was featured in a ''

Zippy the Pinhead Zippy the Pinhead is a fictional character who is the protagonist of ''Zippy'', an American comic strip created by Bill Griffith. Zippy's most famous quotation, "Are we having fun yet?", appears in ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'' and became a ...

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

on September 17, 2005.

References

External links

Gallery of Huge Beings

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaw, Johnny Kansas culture American folklore Fictional characters from Kansas Outdoor sculptures in Kansas Novelty buildings in Kansas Roadside attractions in Kansas Fictional giants Tall tales Concrete sculptures in the United States 1966 sculptures Fictional farmers Individual signs in the United States Fakelore Statues of fictional characters

Statue

See also

References

External links