Paul Bunyan Days fills Fort Bragg streets with trikes, classic cars and a giant axe

FORT BRAGG, CA., 9/5/26 — A man in a red plaid shirt and a knit cap shouldered an axe the size of a surfboard, leading a line of children, wagons and parents down Franklin Street on Saturday, the second day of Fort Bragg’s annual Paul Bunyan Days.

Paul was Mike Stephens, who has carried the axe for the Paul Bunyan Days Association for more than a decade. The four-day Labor Day festival has run in Fort Bragg since 1939, and the association bills it as the oldest and largest on the Mendocino Coast. This year’s theme is “Back to School with Paul and Babe.”