- This is International Falls, Minnesota, home of football legend, Bronko Nagurski, where they loved him so much, they turned him into a giant statue.

No, not that one.

Not that one either.

That's actually in the next town over.

That's not even a person.

It's good.

Welcome to "Minnesota Historia."

I'm Hailey, your guide to Bronko Nagurski.

This is Bronko Nagurski.

Look at this guy, he's like six feet tall and six feet wide.

He looks like if Hercules had a child with a minotaur, I'm sorry, you show me one football player and the insecure theater kid inside me turns into an insult comic.

But lemme tell you this, I don't have a whole entire museum dedicated to me like Bronko Nagurski does.

- The Bronko Nagurski Museum, it opened in 1993 and it has remained the only museum that is dedicated solely to just one professional football player.

- [Hailey] This is Ashley Lavigne, the museum's executive director.

- So Bronko Nagurski was named one of the greatest football players of all time.

Then he was also a professional wrestler.

- [Hailey] And this is Stuart Nordquist.

He used to coach football here.

- But I think if you go back and you start looking at what he accomplished, you go, "Oh, wow.

Yes."

- Bronko was a high school football and basketball star for the International Falls... Men in Purple and Gold?

- The Men of Purple and Gold.

- But college was where he really shined.

- In 27, 28, and 29, he was fabulous at the University of Minnesota.

He is the only player in collegiate history to make All American at two positions in the same year, tackle and fullback.

- In 1930, he joined the Chicago Bears, helping them win championships in 1932, 33 and 43.

And yet... - When I talked to Bronko, he said his top salary he ever got was $5,000.

- $5,000 per season, not per game.

It's no wonder he turned to professional wrestling to pay the bills.

- He did wrestling and football at the same time.

- As a wrestler, you made more money and you weren't taking the pounding.

- Wrestling was a lot bigger back then because the NFL was really just kind of starting.

Football wasn't super popular.

Wrestling was.

So, Bronko was drawing crowds of 30 to 40,000 people, specifically just to see him in a ring.

- He was a once in a lifetime specimen.

- He was very entertaining.

I mean, he was strong.

I mean, he could just pick people up and throw them around the ring, throw them out of the ring, you know, just really manhandling people.

- He was a man handler on the football field too.

- [Ashley] He was really hard for, you know, anyone to tackle and bring down.

There were always stories of him needing two or three people to bring him down on the field.

The game of football was changing, the way people were getting hit was changing, and Bronko just made it interesting for people to watch.

- Bronko Nagurski has one of the most satisfying human names I've ever read off a teleprompter.

Bronko Nagurski.

Where does a guy like that even come from?

- [Ashley] He does come from an immigrant family.

You know, he's from the Ukraine.

- No, his real name is Bronislau.

- His parents came from Galicia.

It's in the Ukraine.

Galicia doesn't exist anymore.

It's gone.

It's been absorbed by other regions of Ukraine.

They came to America and they met on a work farm in the Dakotas, and then they traveled together after they were married to Canada.

And that's where Bronko was born.

He was born in Rainy River, Ontario.

And then they came back to the States when he was five years old and they lived in International falls the rest of their lives.

- And his athletic ability, where does something like that come from in the 1920s?

Medicine balls and those vibrating belt machine things?

- They purchased a farm just outside of town, but he never worked out.

He didn't lift weights or do any type of like training like that.

- Great.

Neither do I.

- That may be some good genetics.

I mean as, if you see the picture of his parents, his mom's pretty, she's a pretty sizable lady.

So like I wouldn't fight her, like.

He wrestled until the age of 50.

He was a world heavyweight champion multiple times.

And then after he was done with football and wrestling, he came home.

- After retirement, Bronko returned to International Falls where he operated a gas station.

People came from miles around, partly for gas, sure.

But mostly just to get a look at him and his Godzilla sized hands.

- If you shook hands with Bronko, he engulfed your hand.

- [Hailey] He had the largest ring size in the history of the National Football League.

- Today you'd call him a freak of nature.

- Local legend claims that Nagurski would take his customers' gas caps and screw them on so tightly that no other gas station attendant could remove them.

It was a great way to ensure repeat business.

- That's the story.

- Yeah, that's what people say.

I mean, I don't know how much truth there is to it, but that was just one of a few legends about Bronko and his strength.

- Bronko liked talking to people, but he didn't always love being the center of so much attention.

So he retired to his cabin to hunt and fish.

- When you talked to Bronko, you would never know he had the accomplishments that he had.

He was a very humble person.

- He was just a normal person doing normal people things.

- And that brings us to Sports Stadium, built in 1941 while Bronko was otherwise occupied with wrestling.

Quick tangent on the Great Depression, which started in 1929 and put one quarter of all Americans out of work by 1933.

In 1935, President Franklin D Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration, employing millions of people to build roads, bridges, and buildings, pay for school lunches, establish recreational programs, and employ musicians, writers, and other artists to do, you know, art stuff.

One of those artists was Evelyn Raymond.

Born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1908, she was a painter and sculptor whose work you can see all over Minnesota and in the US Capitol.

In 1941, the WPA asked Evelyn Raymond to provide a mural for a stadium they were building in International Falls.

But there was one catch.

She had to make a full-size clay model of that mural in the lobby of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for all the looky-loos.

This thing was 18 feet tall.

And to work on it, she had to climb up scaffolding.

In a skirt.

What about those looky-loos I told you about?

Couldn't they just look up her skirt?

Most women didn't wear pants on the regular until the 1960s, so Evelyn made her own.

It was another great moment in the women's movement, brought to you entirely by creeps.

This project had one other catch.

- [Stuart] The stadium was something that was built 1941, 42.

- In cement, in International Falls, in the dead of winter.

- It's all one continuous pour.

It was all enclosed in heavy plastic.

- Here's the result.

Am I bananas or does everyone on that mural look like Bronko Nagurski?

- In an interview with Evelyn, that question was asked if Bronko was a muse.

She said that at the time she was interested in Colossus art.

So was it Bronko?

No, but I think that Colossus art style, that form, is, I mean, kind of reminiscent of his general body style, his shape.

- And it makes me wonder, did Evelyn and Bronko know each other?

- She knows who he is.

Did he know who she was?

Probably not.

I mean, maybe.

I don't know how famous she was in the 30s.

- A famous sculptor?

I don't know if there are any sports teams named after sculptors, but I can think of at least one named after a professional athlete.

And it's here in International Falls.

- So the story with that is during World War II... - The Men of Purple and Gold.

- They had a naming contest.

- Picking a high school mascot can be so tricky.

Moorhead Spuds, Aitkin Gobblers, East Grand Forks Green Wave.

If you're not careful, somebody might laugh at your choice.

But in International Falls, the winning mascot name was clear.

- They got their name from Bronko Nagurski.

- And that probably freaked him out.

- Oh, I would be horrified if my old high school called themselves the History Haileys.

Please, don't.

- Bronko did not want the Bronkos to be the Bronkos because he didn't want, you know, himself to be a mascot.

- [Stuart] He didn't want that accolade.

- [Ashley] He finally conceded.

But he said that the spelling simply had to change from B-R-O-N-K-O to B-R-O-N-C-O and the mascot would have to be a horse.

- When it came to naming things after him, Bronko mostly got his way.

Sports Stadium in International Falls is just called Sports Stadium and the field itself is named after our friend Stuart Nordquist.

Unfortunately, Bronko couldn't escape having his museum named after him.

- Bronko died in 1990 and there was a movement that was started by citizens of International Falls to create a museum in Bronko's honor.

This was somebody that they chose that represented the best of the community.

- Word to the wise, if you're going to visit the Bronko Nagurski Museum, and I really insist that you do, make time for the Koochiching County Historical Society, it's in the very same building.

- So when you come here, we have two museums in one, the Bronko Nagurski Museum on one side, and the rest is all historical.

- We asked Ashley which side was her favorite.

- I would say the county history side is probably more my favorite.

- I don't mean to create a scandal, but Ashley's answer surprised me for the following reason.

- So I am the great-grandchild of Bronko Nagurski.

(record scratches) I was fortunate enough that there was a position available here, but it's interesting because Bronko doesn't feel, he's a relative, but to me he's also just another person.

He's just a story that we tell.

But then we have a lot of fur trade enthusiasts, Rainy Lake history, Voyageurs National Park, early Gold Rush, and of course all of our early native history.

So there's a lot to see and a lot to do.

- Look, I've watched enough television to know when you uncover a shocking family secret, you end the show and you go to credits.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Thanks for watching Minnesota Historia, your guide to all things quirky in Minnesota history.

Check out some of our other episodes where we go even further and deeper into the quirky soft underbelly of this very weird state.

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