OCTOBER 2025 Ghost Towns and History of Montana Newsletter From The Belt Valley Times, Oct. 29, 1925 Thar She Blows: When Whales Rode the Rails in Montana by Bob Goss “So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!” Nantucket Song Published in Montana Pioneer, July 2019 Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ “Avast ye - thar she blows!” Not exactly a phrase one would have expected to hear in the bustling landlocked cities of Montana, but that is exactly what happened some ninety years ago. In September 1930, the newspapers were awash with tales of a whale sailing across the boundless plains of Montana on ships of steel. A Butte paper announced, “No doubt the largest visitor to ever come to Butte will pay the city a visit for three days,” while other papers exclaimed, “The familiar cry of the whaler, “Thar she blows,” can be sounded here Friday when the famous whale of San Clemente arrives in this city.” In Livingston, a somewhat more staid reporter drily announced the arrival of a, “72-ton, 65-foot whale, the largest fin-back whale ever captured.” Helena, in a more exuberant fashion, “gave the monster finback whale a whale of a welcome. . . by furnishing some genuine whale weather which made Moby Dora rest peacefully in her handsomely lighted casket.” What unfathomable befuddlement was manifesting itself in Montana? A whale resting in a casket inland some 800-1000 miles from the Pacific Ocean? Perplexing perhaps, but not inexplicable. So, heave ho, my hearties and gather ‘round amidships for a whale of a yarn. . . From the Helena Independent Record, Sept. 21, 1930
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