Fort Bragg’s Paul Bunyan Days Parade highlights the city’s biggest annual event

FORT BRAGG, CA., 9/2/25 — Paul Bunyan Days wrapped up over Labor Day weekend with the annual Paul Bunyan Parade through downtown Fort Bragg.

Monday’s parade featured local fire departments, their engines blaring to signal the start of the procession, along with a wide range of community participants, including youth cheer and sports teams, local organizations and floats celebrating Fort Bragg’s logging heritage and community spirit. In recent years, the event has also taken on a more political tone, drawing both pro-Trump supporters as well as participants protesting the Trump administration’s cuts affecting local healthcare, seniors and veterans.

Logging communities across North America have long embraced Paul Bunyan as a symbolic patron of their trade. Statues, parades and festivals sprang up in towns where timber was central to life and the economy.

The folklore figure and his companion, Babe the Blue Ox, first appeared in French Canadian and Great Lakes storytelling in the late 19th century. Tales of an outsized lumberjack likely trace back to Bon Jean, a French-Canadian folk hero, and were embellished in logging camps from Canada down through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

On the Mendocino coast, the Paul Bunyan parade blends the folkloric Paul Bunyan and Babe with the very real history of logging in Mendocino County.

“Play Ball! With Paul and Babe” was the theme of this year’s Paul Bunyan Days Parade, highlighting Fort Bragg’s baseball heritage and honoring local figures tied to the sport.

Grand marshals were Barbara Steckter, whose roots trace back to the regional women’s league of the 1950s and who later coached softball at local schools and Cuco Renteria, a former member of the Loggers baseball team.

In the mid-20th century, Fort Bragg was home to the Fort Bragg Loggers, a semi-professional baseball team that became a cornerstone of the local sports scene. The Loggers’ games were a popular weekend attraction, providing entertainment and fostering a strong sense of community. Women’s softball has also had a long-standing tradition in Fort Bragg. The Fort Bragg Girls Softball Association, established in 1975, provides opportunities for girls and women to participate in the sport, contributing to the growth and visibility of female athletes in the community.

Fort Bragg has produced several notable players who advanced to collegiate and professional levels. Among them is Fort Bragg High’s John DeSilva, a pitcher who played for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Baltimore Orioles from 1993 to 1995.

Scatter band and horses return to the parade—to the delight of the crowd

The parade also featured the return of the popular Vaqueros Mexicanos on horseback and, for the 17th consecutive year, Cal Poly Humboldt’s Marching Lumberjacks — the last remaining scatter band from a public university. Scatter bands do not march in precise lines but dash into changing formations; they often use comedy in their routines.

The largest contingent in the parade was Indivisible Mendocino Coast, a grassroots group founded in 2017 to promote democracy and support people in need. Marching for the first time in the event, members waved American flags and carried signs backing workers’ rights, immigrant rights and democracy. Their rallying chant, “Go to a protest, fight for the Constitution, win a better future,” resonated with many along the parade route.

As they passed the reviewing stand, retired Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman, who served as the parade announcer, read from their entry: “Just like at the ballpark, they’re singing the Star-Spangled Banner.” 

“A very fine rendition,” added Allman, now mayor of Willits and a popular figure throughout the county.

Paul Bunyan Days Association President Lou Sciocchetti said, “We are excited to sponsor a number of events during these Paul Bunyan Days with traditional logging shows, family activities and the parade — all honoring the town’s logging history.”

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