Forest History Association of Wisconsin. Proceedings (1996-2006)

              Eugene Simeon Shepard and the Living Legacy of the Rhinelander Hodag
By Kurt Kortenhof
Serving as an apprentice on his initial land-looking venture, Eugene Simeon Shepard first laid eyes on the future location of Rhinelander, Wisconsin in 1870. Returning south from inspecting timber in the vicinity of the Eagle River, Shepard and his newly acquired employer, Albert A. Webber, camped at the confluence of the Wisconsin and Pelican Rivers. Known then as Pelican Rapids, the location impressed the sixteen year-old Shepard engaged in learning the art of timber assessing. Shepard later remembered:
/ came down and explored the flat country where the city now stands. The land was covered with a thick growth of jack pine and larger long slim Norway. Mr. John C. Curran had settled at the mouth of the Pelican river fsicj some 16 factually 11] years before and had a clearing made where the city park fShepard Park] now stands. He was engaged fin] buying furs from the Indians and in a small way logging in company with L.S. Coon of Wausau and Berlin. A dozen yoke of oxen were grazing around the country and about a dozen families of Indians lived in tepees around the place and worked as Indians usually do in intervals.
The combination of water power provided by the rapids, and the extensive stands of pine covering the area made Pelican Rapids a prospective lumbering headquarters with enormous potential. Indeed, Pelican Rapids' untapped opportunity peaked the young Shepard's interest. Long before Rhinelander was founded, Shepard had decided that he would "be there also on the ground floor."^
Over a century and one quarter after Eugene Shepard first viewed Rhinelander's future location, his name remains tied closely to the character of the city and his often-retold antics ingrained it its local color. Shepard's most notable accomplishment was his 1896 capture and popularization of the Rhinelander Hodag, a fictional lizard-like beast born of the lumber camps and employed to promote the city. Today the Hodag is Rhinelander's high school mascot, city symbol and most-prized tourist-attracting peculiarity. To be sure, accounts of the Hodag's capture and entertaining career have been recounted in newspapers from Bangor, Maine to Fairbanks, Alaska. In fact it is difficult to find a publication focusing on Northern Wisconsin history, lumbering or regional lore that does not offer some account of Shepard's Hodag. These accounts, however, focus entirely on the hoax of the Hodag - the fact that it was an invention evolved from a lumber-camp myth and molded into an elaborate prank that may have fooled some, hut gave more a chuckle.
1 The following is derived from LONG LIVE THE HODAG!  THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF EUGENE SIMEON SHEPARD: 1854-1923 by Kurt D. Kortenhof (ISBN: 0-9653745-0-5). For a more detailed account of Shepard's impact on Rhinelander, complete citations and bibliography please refer to LONG LIVE THE HODAG!
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