Paul Bunyan (Knutson's Sporting Goods)

Brooklyn, Michigan, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A 20-foot fibreglass Paul Bunyan was reported in 2025 to stand near the front entrance of Knutson's Sporting Goods in Brooklyn, Michigan. According to that report it began in 1961 at an Ann Arbor restaurant, later stood at the Stagecoach Stop theme park, and came to Knutson's in 2011.

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Paul Bunyan (Knutson's Sporting Goods)

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Site-level location · 42.0991° N, 84.2459° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Paul Bunyan has spent most of his working life in Michigan, moving between a restaurant, a theme park and a sporting-goods store. In June 2025 broadcaster Scott Clow of 99.9 WFMK described the 20-foot fibreglass figure standing near the front entrance of Knutson's Sporting Goods in Brooklyn, off Wamplers Lake Road.

It belongs to the family of fibreglass giants later nicknamed Muffler Men. Citing Medium, the 2025 article says figures of this kind were created in the 1960s by Bill Swan and Bob Prewitt of Prewitt Fiberglass Animals in Lawndale, California, and were given the name by Roadside America because they often advertised auto shops. This one, though, was not made for a muffler shop. Citing the Ann Arbor News, the article says it first stood at Ann Arbor's former Paul Bunyan restaurant on Jackson Road from 1961 until the early 1980s, alongside a twin.

After the restaurant rebranded, the article says, the two figures were left lying in a field for several years until one was bought for $300. It then stood at the entrance of the Stagecoach Stop, an Old West theme park on US 12 in Onsted, in the Irish Hills, until the park closed in 2007. The figure was not part of the park's auction and sat unused again.

Knutson's Sporting Goods bought it in 2011, and the article says it has stood there ever since.

The statue is outside a working store in the town of Brooklyn, so a stop is best fitted around a normal visit to the shop.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A 20-foot fibreglass Paul Bunyan near the front entrance of a working sporting-goods store off Wamplers Lake Road, Brooklyn. In June 2025 99.9 WFMK described it standing there; it is business property.

ACCESS

Outside Knutson's Sporting Goods, off Wamplers Lake Road in Brooklyn, Michigan. It stands on the store's property near the front entrance, so visit as a customer would.

COMMUNITY

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WHAT'S NEXT

Find another Big Thing nearby

Six concrete carrot sculptures, 4 to 10 feet tall, stand at Food Gatherers, 1 Carrot Way, in Ann Arbor. American Road magazine reports they have been in place since 2013 and were created by a man who designed miniature-golf courses. They were repainted in autumn 2024 by a fine arts student from Sinclair College in Ohio. The carrot is Food Gatherers' logo.

Roadside giants

49 km away

TRANSPARENCY

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