P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r improvements in sailing and whaling technology allowed the struggling industry to be profitable, but on a smaller scale. The use of harpoon guns, basically small cannons with explosive harpoons, made the chase much easier and safer. In 1911, Capt. John Loop began showcasing whales to southern Californians at the Long Beach harbor. He and his crew harpooned their victims off Catalina Island and towed them into port. Selling excursion tickets, he escorted a gawking throng to gaze at these blubbery behemoths. Once again, after 3-4 days, the gamy aroma forced him to turn the beasts into fertilizer and sail forth for another specimen. He struggled to perfect a method to preserve these cetaceans for longer periods of time, but alas, he finally abandoned the endeavor after four years. Enter the Pacific Whaling Company of Long Beach (PWC) in the late 1920s, the brainchild of M.C. Hutton and Harold Anfenger. Created not for whaling, but as an exhibition company, it became the genesis of our story. Hutton, picking up where Capt. Loop had left off, and with the aid of local morticians, finally perfected an embalming process involving formaldehyde and salt water injections that promised to preserve the leviathan for a lengthy period. Hutton contracted with local whaling captains to ferry whales ashore to a barge, where they were loaded onto 100-foot railcars, specially built in Van Wert, Ohio. A glass viewing enclosure was constructed to encase the mammoth beast. The whales required some 1000 to 2000 gallons of the embalming fluid and necessitated additional doses on a regular basis. By October 1929, at least two whales had been prepared and were ready to set sail aboard the rails of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. Within the next months, the former denizens of the deep had visited Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and points in between. In April and May 1930, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa and other points east, south, or north were visited. Over time, up to nine whales were put on the rails and bestowed with a variety of monikers of gargantuan proportions that were not always used for the same whale: Colossus, Goliath, Moby Dick and Big Bertha were the most popular. The public loved it! Reportedly the PWC raked in $100,000 in the first six months. At 25 cents a pop, that is a lot of quarters. The company hired publicists to visit each city along the tour route a couple of days prior to the leviathWhale Dancers, Courtesy of SPNB.
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