The sleepy town of Florence, Oregon, became the setting for one of the most bizarre news stories in American history. An eight-ton sperm whale washed ashore, measuring a whopping forty-five feet in ...

Happy botched whale corpse disposal day to you and yours. Just last year, Florence Mayor Rob Ward stood in front of a small crowd at Exploding Whale Memorial Park to announce that the whole month of ...

The word “meme” didn’t exist when Paul Linnman and Doug Brazil—a KATU-TV reporter and cameraman, respectively—chartered a flight from Portland to Florence one cool November day in 1970, and the notion ...

When a whale dies in the ocean, an ecosystem grows around its sunken carcass. It’s an epic burial at sea, something researchers call a whale fall. The body is a literal smorgasbord on which deep sea ...

In 1970, a 45-foot, 8-ton sperm whale washed ashore near Florence, Oregon. The Oregon State Highway Division decided to dispose of the carcass using dynamite. Florence will celebrate the 55th ...