Today, November 18, 2025, marks fifty-five years since the people of Oregon blew a beached whale to kingdom come with a huge amount of dynamite. The whale was long dead and had been sinking up the beach, so local authorities decided to use a half-ton of TNT to blow it into pieces. The explosion was bigger than anyone had expected.
When a 45-foot, 8-ton whale washed ashore on a beach near Florence in November 1970, the Department of Transportation had a stinky situation on its hands. They had to figure out what to do with the massive corpse.
It had been so long since a whale had washed up in Lane County, that no one could remember how to get rid of one.
The blast sent chunks of whale blubber raining down over a quarter-mile radius, famously flattening a car and showering spectators with rotting flesh. Engineer George Thornton, who chose the dynamite over burial or towing, later admitted he probably used too much. Fifty-five years later, the “Exploding Whale of Florence” remains America’s most spectacularly misguided attempt at roadside cleanup—an enduring reminder that when dealing with nature’s giants, sometimes less really is more.