Oregon's infamous whale explosion occurred on this day 49 years ago

by KATU News

Tue, November 12th 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

"So I'm all excited, and I went over to my dad: 'They're going to blow it up, 20 cases of dynamite,' and my father proceeded to say, 'I think you misheard them. I think he said 20 sticks," Umenhofer recalled in 2015. "And I said, 'No he said 20 cases.'"

Reporter Paul Linnman and photographer Doug Brazil visited the Oregon Coast on November 12, 1970. "It had to be said the Oregon State Highway Department not only had a whale of a problem on its hands," Linnman reported. "It had a stinking whale of a problem."

Officials weren't quite sure what to do with the 45-foot, 8-ton whale. They finally decided it would be best to deal with the whale in the same way they would a boulder: blow it up. "So dynamite it was, some 20 cases or a half ton of it," Linnman reported. "The hope was that the long-dead pacific gray whale would be almost disintegrated by the blast." (KATU)

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"So I'm all excited, and I went over to my dad: 'They're going to blow it up, 20 cases of dynamite,' and my father proceeded to say, 'I think you misheard them. I think he said 20 sticks," Umenhofer recalled in 2015. "And I said, 'No he said 20 cases.'"

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