Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
Speaker 1: from the arts to sports, and from business to history.
Speaker 1: And we've got a well of a tale to bring
Speaker 1: you right now, Jesse Edwards can explain.
Speaker 2: On November ninth, nineteen seventy, a forty five foot long,
Speaker 2: eight ton sperm whale washed ashore on the central Oregon Coast,
Speaker 2: just outside the town of Florence.
Speaker 3: After all these years, it's amazing that this thing has
Speaker 3: come back to life again. But every once in a
Speaker 3: while it pops up.
Speaker 2: It's an aroma that still lingers.
Speaker 3: It was one of the worst smells I've ever encountered.
Speaker 3: Words cannot describe the smell. It was in my nostrils
Speaker 3: for a solid week.
Speaker 2: The whale carcass remained rotting on the beach for over
Speaker 2: a week. Nobody knew what to do about it. It
Speaker 2: was too big to berry, stunk too much to cut
Speaker 2: into smaller pieces, and burning it was out of the question.
Speaker 2: At the time. Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of
Speaker 2: the state's Highway Division, which, after consulting with the United
Speaker 2: States Navy, decided to remove the whale using dynamite. George
Speaker 2: Thornton was the engineer in charge of the operation.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm confident that it'll work. The only thing is
Speaker 4: we're not sure just exactly how much explosives it'll take
Speaker 4: to disintegrate this things. So the scavenger, seagulls and crabs
Speaker 4: and what knot can clean it up. Is there any
Speaker 4: chance it might be more than a one day job
Speaker 4: if there's any large chunks left, and we may have
Speaker 4: to do some other clean up, possibly set.
Speaker 2: Another Thornton was chosen to remove the whale carcass because
Speaker 2: his supervisor had gone hunting that day. A charge of
Speaker 2: half a ton of dynamite was selected. As words spread
Speaker 2: across town, crowds began to gather.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking we got big trouble here, twenty cases of dynamite.
Speaker 2: Walter Umenhaffer, a military veteran with explosives training, happened to
Speaker 2: be in the crowd. He warned the crew that the
Speaker 2: twenty cases of dynamite was an overkill. Twenty sticks would
Speaker 2: have sufficed, but his advice went unheeded.
Speaker 3: This guy says, any how, I said, I'm gonna have
Speaker 3: everybody up there on the top of those doings. Far away.
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, and I'm going to be the furthest
Speaker 3: sob down that way. They made a big spectacle of
Speaker 3: waving their hats, the hard hats in the air, and
Speaker 3: went clear everybody away, and all this all clear.
Speaker 2: The dynamite was buried under the whale on the leeward side,
Speaker 2: so that most of the mammal would be blown towards
Speaker 2: the sea. The crowds of people that had come to
Speaker 2: see the whale be blown to bits were pushed back
Speaker 2: a quarter of a mile to safety. The dynamite was
Speaker 2: detonated at three forty five pm. Up, Fred your head,
Speaker 2: what you're hearing are the chunks of rotten whale blooder
Speaker 2: raining down on the spectators. Walter Ummenhoffer saw it all happen.
Speaker 3: And I touched that socker off and let me tell you,
Speaker 3: that thing went up and it was the veigest mushroom
Speaker 3: cloud you ever seen. And it was red and white
Speaker 3: and black in it, with nothing but guts and bloods
Speaker 3: and gunk.
Speaker 2: Carried by strong coastal winds, a cloud of putrid whale
Speaker 2: fluids moved inland.
Speaker 3: So everybody all of a sudden start realizing that, oh
Speaker 3: my god, here it comes in this mist. We were covered,
Speaker 3: we were permeated with redness and the smell.
Speaker 2: Those who witnessed the explosion agree that the next few
Speaker 2: moments seemed to last forever. It soon became apparent what
Speaker 2: should have been little pieces of whale turned out to
Speaker 2: be big ones. And this stuff starts hitting the ground,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, you realize, my god, I
Speaker 2: could be killed by whale blubber here.
Speaker 3: And I'm watching this one piece. There's a big piece
Speaker 3: up there. It's kind of flubbering and floating around. And
Speaker 3: we ran, we literally ran, and it just absolutely stopped.
Speaker 1: And it came flat down a cup sh.
Speaker 2: Right on top of Walter Amenhoffer's nineteen sixty nine oldsmobile.
Speaker 3: It was a neat car. I just got it from Donams.
Speaker 3: It was a Regency and like I say, the funny
Speaker 3: thing about their slogan was a whale of a deal. Well,
Speaker 3: I got a hell of a whale of a deal.
Speaker 2: Within two days, the State of Oregon wrote Walter a
Speaker 2: check for the full retail value of his car. The
Speaker 2: blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds, yet only some
Speaker 2: of the whale was disintegrated. The majority of the whale
Speaker 2: carcass remained on the beach, with the Oregon Highway Division
Speaker 2: to clean up due to damage that was caused to
Speaker 2: local property. Whales that are found beached in Oregon are
Speaker 2: now buried where they're found. And you may be wondering
Speaker 2: what happened to the man who decided it was a
Speaker 2: good idea to use one thousand pounds of dynamite to
Speaker 2: blow up the beached whale, George Thornton, Is there.
Speaker 3: Any chance it might be more than a one day.
Speaker 4: If there's any large chunks left.
Speaker 2: In his official report back in nineteen seventy, he declared
Speaker 2: the operation a success, which helps to explain what happened
Speaker 2: to his career. Just six months later, he got promoted
Speaker 2: four Our American Stories.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Edwards, and great job as always to Jesse
Speaker 1: Edwards who always manages to find these quirky and yet
Speaker 1: ultimately American stories. And I just loved hearing the voices
Speaker 1: and the sound effects. My goodness, I just keep thinking
Speaker 1: about the smell the exploding well of Florence, Oregon. That
Speaker 1: story here on Our American Stories lie habibe here, And
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