Lumberjacks had talked about the vicious beast of the Wisconsin North Woods for years. But nobody had ever seen a live one until Eugene Shepard of Rhinelander exhibited it at the fair.

Visitors, permitted a brief glimpse into a darkened stall -- for their own safety -- saw a hideous, 7-foot-long creature with horns, spikes and claws. Some visitors described the creature as an alligator crossed with a buffalo.

News of Shepard 's discovery flooded the press from Minneapolis to Texas. Tourists swarmed north that fall and the next summer to see the monster.

Thousands of people returned home singing the praises of Wisconsin 's clear lakes and virgin forests, and many later returned to vacation here.

The hodag was a hoax, of course. Loggers dreamed it up before 1870, and between 1889 and 1892 comic tales appeared in several U.S. newspapers about a con man who fleeced gullible customers into paying to see one. The hodag was also used by a Wisconsin Rapids lumber company throughout 1896 as an advertising gimmick.

Gene Shepard didn 't invent the hodag, but he pulled off such a successful hoax that even after he confessed, tourists still came to see it -- not because it was genuine, but because it had tricked the nation.

And in the process, he helped start the tourism business in Wisconsin 's North Woods.

-- Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

"Odd Wisconsin," by Erika Janik is now available as a book from the Wisconsin Historical Society for $16.95. Visit www.wisconsinhistory.org for details.

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