John Henry

"John Henry" is one of a string of animated shorts that Walt Disney's studios have made over the years. This is a fairly late comer among this comic book style of short films. Several of these are about legendary characters in America's past. John Henry is an American folk hero of African descent, who had been a slave. As "The Ballad of John Henry" says, he was a steel-driving man.

Just as Paul Bunyan was the giant among lumber jacks, John Henry was a giant among steel drivers who built the American railroads. This 10-minutte short is on a DVD of Disney's American Legends. There's a large statue of John Henry in John Henry Historical Park near Talcott, West Virginia. It's located near the entrance to the abandoned railroad Big Bend tunnel.