Since 1993 Hodag Press has been publishing GOOD REGIONAL READING focusing on the upper Midwest.

The Woodenhead: Treachery at the Northern Edge

2024

The Outhouse Papers cover.by: Mike Skubal

In the Spring of 2023, The Outhouse Papers: Gene Shepard and the Hodag, appeared in Rhinelander – a small city in the heart of Wisconsin’s Northwoods. The book follows the protagonist, The Old Man, as he works out of a remote cabin to discover the true story behind Rhinelander’s beloved and nationally celebrated mascot, the Hodag. The book brings together Rhinelander’s distant past with the author’s current investigation into a captivating tale that makes even Rhinelander’s old-timers question what they thought they knew. You may have even read it – many of us have.

The Woodenhead – Treachery at the Northern Edge, follows the same Old Man, still working out of his rustic cabin, on a new quest of discovery. The Outhouse Papers had brought the author some notoriety and with it a letter addressed to “The Old Man who writes in a cabin in the woods.” The letter asks him to find a missing chest containing the memorabilia of Harry (The Great) Lester, an internationally acclaimed vaudevillian ventriloquist and one of Rhinelander’s most notable early 20th-century residents. His investigation turns up more than just the chest, however, and he shines new light on a nearly century-old tragedy that took place at a long-forgotten resort on Moen Lake just outside of Rhinelander. In this second book in the Old Man Series, readers are again taken along with the writer as he weaves in and out of Rhinelander’s past and discovers that there is, once again, more to the story. 

ISBN: 978-0965374569

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The Outhouse Papers: Gene Shepard and the Hodag

2023

The Outhouse Papers cover.by: Mike Skubal

To people living in Rhinelander, northern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan the Hodag’s story is a familiar one. First discovered and then captured in the 1890s by Rhinelander’s most celebrated timber cruiser and city jester, Gene Shepard, the beast connected Ojibwe legend, lumberjack lore, and city promotion to bring some notoriety to the small northern Wisconsin community. Shepard famously displayed his captured creature – the angry spirit of a cremated lumber ox reincarnated into the body of an antediluvian monster – at county fairs, and at his Rhinelander home until it was revealed to be a hoax – just a stump dressed up with hide and horns. Hoax or not, since then Rhinelander has been using the Hodag to connect to its past and promote its future.

But is that the full story?

In The Outhouse Papers, a mysterious patron employs a retired investigative journalist to track down the truth behind the Hodag legend. The quest follows the writer as he moves beyond the well-known story to a time when Rhinelander was younger, grittier, and its saloons had spittoons instead of stools. Slowly he discovers new clues, fits pieces together, and makes connections that reveal a story much different than the one you’ve so often heard. This is a masterfully told story that takes readers along with the journalist through twists and turns as he discovers connections between Rhinelander’s past and the sanitized legend it advertises today.

Perhaps the Hodag is a hoax, but the hoax is not what you thought it was. 

ISBN: 978-0965374552

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Long Live the Hodag: The Life and Legacy of Eugene Simeon Shepard

Long Live the Hodag

2006

by: Kurt Kortenhof

A second edition of LONG LIVE THE HODAG! - The Life and Legacy of Eugene Simeon Shepard is currently available. Highlights of this expanded version include:

Read the Preface to the Second Edition

Purchase this book from Amazon.com: $18 + $3.99 shipping.