Earl Bunyon

New Town, North Dakota, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Earl Bunyan is a cowboy statue about 19 feet tall on the east side of New Town, North Dakota. Fred and Berd LaRocque dreamed it up as a fictional brother of Paul Bunyan, and a plaque dates the statue to 1958. Drill stems, wagon tires and cement stucco form its body. It was restored in 2021, and KFYR reported the work again in June 2024.

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Earl Bunyon

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Approximate location · 47.981° N, 102.490° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A cowboy about 19 feet tall, built from discarded drill stems and wagon tires, stands on the east side of New Town, North Dakota, with an invented claim to be Paul Bunyan’s brother.

Fred LaRocque and his wife, Berd, dreamed up Earl Bunyan, “Cowboy of the Plains”, and the concrete plaque beside the statue says it was built in 1958. The Minot Daily News reported in 2021 that Fred built the figure to honour the “Old Time Cowboys of the Open Range” and made up the story that Earl was the brother of Minnesota’s lumberjack. He narrated that tale for a comic book in 1961. The plaque spells the surname “Bunyon”, and both spellings are in use.

The couple’s son Jene recalled that the oil boom was under way across the river and that welders and other men helped put Earl together: “Earl’s arms and legs were built from discarded drill stems.” Wagon tires formed the chest and hips, with chicken wire and a coat of cement stucco over the frame. A family member told the newspaper that the cowboy now holds a branding iron and a walking stick, and originally held a fishing pole and a couple of fish.

The base area is an official cemetery, and the ashes of Fred and Berd LaRocque were placed there, the Minot Daily News reported in 2021. Photographer Jim Dow photographed the statue in 1981, and the North Dakota Museum of Art holds his photograph of it. In the 1990s it was included in the Inventory of American Sculptures database.

By 2021 the statue had not been maintained for many years, the Minot Daily News reported, and a restoration began, financed by a $10,000 Mountrail County Jobs Development Authority Horizon grant matched by the New Town Chamber of Commerce; KFYR put the overall cost at about $20,000. The ground beneath Earl is a burial place, so stop quietly.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A roughly 19-foot cowboy statue with a concrete plaque at its base. According to the Minot Daily News in 2021, a written history of the statue is displayed at the site. The statue and its land are privately owned by the family.

ACCESS

On the east side of New Town, North Dakota. The Minot Daily News reported in 2021 that the base area is an official cemetery with wagon wheels as monuments, so visit quietly and respectfully. The statue and its land are privately owned by the family.

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Theodore Roosevelt giant head (Roosevelt Inn, 20 ft)

Watford City, North Dakota

A 20-foot-tall, 8-ton concrete bust of Theodore Roosevelt by Houston artist David Adickes stands at the Roosevelt Inn & Suites, 600 2nd Ave SW, Watford City, North Dakota, along US Highway 85. It was made for Presidents Park in Lead, South Dakota, which opened in 2003 and had closed by about 2010. The inn's owner bought it in October 2012, and a Rapid City artist installed it.

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62 km away

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