He is presented to readers (see "Origin", below) as having been the protagonist of tales of oral folklore told by steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which later spread throughout the industrial areas of the Midwestern United States, sometimes referred to as the Rust Belt.
Magarac was born in a 1931 Scribner's magazine article by Owen Francis, who said he heard the story from Croatian immigrant steelworkers in Pittsburgh area steel mills.
However, field research in the early 1950s failed to uncover any traces of an oral tradition about the character, meaning that Joe Magarac, like Pecos Bill and Febold Feboldson, probably belongs in the category of "fakelore," or stories told folk-tale style that did not actually spring from authentic folklore.
[5] Magarac won the beautiful Mary Mestrovich's hand in marriage in a weight-lifting contest, but he allowed her to marry her true love Pete Pussick.
[9] One of four human sculptures salvaged from the demolished Manchester Bridge in Pittsburgh is said to be of Magarac,[10] but some sources identify the figure only generically as a mill worker.
The statue is also highlighted in Saints Row IV as a weapon in a scene where the player animates it and uses it to fight a giant energy drink mascot.