Here on Our American Stories, we often find ourselves exploring the unexpected twists and turns of our nation’s past. Today, we’re taking you back to the picturesque Oregon Coast in 1970, where a monumental problem washed ashore near the town of Florence: a massive, 45-foot sperm whale carcass. What do you do when something so enormous, so undeniably smelly, becomes a permanent fixture on your beach? Local officials faced an unprecedented challenge, and their solution—in true American fashion—was anything but conventional, leading to one of the most unforgettable moments in Oregon history.
Faced with a dilemma too big to bury or burn, the Oregon Highway Division decided on a bold, high-explosive approach to remove the beached whale: dynamite. What followed wasn’t just a cleanup operation; it was a spectacular, blubber-raining event that stunned onlookers and cemented its place in local legend. Join us as we uncover the incredible, and frankly, hilarious details behind the infamous exploding whale of Florence, Oregon—a wild tale that proves sometimes, the most astonishing American stories are the ones where things go wonderfully, catastrophically wrong.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
On November ninth, nineteen seventy, a forty-five-foot-long, eight-ton sperm whale washed ashore on the central Oregon Coast, just outside the town of Florence.
“After all these years, it’s amazing that this thing has come back to life again. But every once in a while, it pops up.”
It’s an aroma that still lingers.
“It was one of the worst smells I’ve ever encountered. Words cannot describe the smell.”
“It was in my nostrils for a solid week.”
The whale carcass remained rotting on the beach for over a week. Nobody knew what to do about it. It was too big to bury, stunk too much to cut into smaller pieces, and burning it was out of the question. At the time, Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of the state’s Highway Division, which, after consulting with the United States Navy, decided to remove the whale using dynamite. George Thornton was the engineer in charge of the operation.
“Well, I’m confident that it’ll work. The only thing is we’re not sure just exactly how much explosives it’ll take to disintegrate this thing, so the scavengers—seagulls and crabs and whatnot—can clean it up. Is there any chance it might be more than a one-day job? If there’s any large chunks left, and we may have to do some other cleanup, possibly set…”
Another Thornton was chosen to remove the whale carcass because his supervisor had gone hunting that day. A charge of half a ton of dynamite was selected. As words spread across town, crowds began to gather.
“I’m thinking we got big trouble here: twenty cases of dynamite!”
Walter Ummenhoffer, a military veteran with explosives training, happened to be in the crowd. He warned the crew that the twenty cases of dynamite was an overkill. Twenty sticks would have sufficed, but his advice went unheeded.
“This guy says, ‘Anyhow,’ I said, ‘I’m gonna have everybody up there on the top of those doings.’ ‘Far away?’ I said, ‘Yeah, and I’m going to be the furthest SOB down that way.’ They made a big spectacle of waving their hats—the hard hats—in the air, and went, ‘Clear everybody away!’ And all this: ‘All clear!'”
The dynamite was buried under the whale on the leeward side, so that most of the mammal would be blown towards the sea. The crowds of people that had come to see the whale be blown to bits were pushed back a quarter of a mile to safety. The dynamite was detonated at 3:45 p.m. Up, Fred, your head! What you’re hearing are the chunks of rotten whale blubber raining down on the spectators. Walter Ummenhoffer saw it all happen.
“And I touched that sucker off, and let me tell you, that thing went up, and it was the vaguest mushroom cloud you ever seen. And it was red and white and black in it, with nothing but guts and blood and gunk.”
Carried by strong coastal winds, a cloud of putrid whale fluids moved inland.
“So everybody all of a sudden started realizing that, ‘Oh my God, here it comes in this mist!’ We were covered, we were permeated with redness and the smell.”
Those who witnessed the explosion agree that the next few moments seemed to last forever. It soon became apparent what should have been little pieces of whale turned out to be big ones. “And this stuff starts hitting the ground, and all of a sudden, you realize, ‘My God, I could be killed by whale blubber here!'”
“And I’m watching this one piece. There’s a big piece up there. It’s kind of flubbering and floating around. And we ran, we literally ran, and it just absolutely stopped, and it came flat down, ‘A-kupsh!'”
Right on top of Walter Ummenhoffer’s nineteen sixty-nine Oldsmobile.
“It was a neat car. I just got it from Donams. It was a Regency, and like I say, the funny thing about their slogan was ‘a whale of a deal.’ Well, I got a hell of a whale of a deal.”
Within two days, the State of Oregon wrote Walter a check for the full retail value of his car. The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds, yet only some of the whale was disintegrated. The majority of the whale carcass remained on the beach, with the Oregon Highway Division to clean up due to damage that was caused to local property. Whales that are found beached in Oregon are now buried where they’re found. And you may be wondering what happened to the man who decided it was a good idea to use one thousand pounds of dynamite to blow up the beached whale, George Thornton.
“Any chance it might be more than a one-day job?”
“If there’s any large chunks left…”
In his official report back in nineteen seventy, he declared the operation a success, which helps to explain what happened to his career. Just six months later, he got promoted. For Our American Stories…
I’m Jesse Edwards, and great job as always to Jesse Edwards, who always manages to find these quirky and yet ultimately American stories. And I just loved hearing the voices and the sound effects. My goodness, I just keep thinking about the smell—the exploding whale of Florence, Oregon. That story here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear again can be found there daily. Again, please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep these great American stories coming.
Discover more real American voices.
