A whale in the Mississippi Sound? It’s happened before.
Lawsuits, national news, gawkers, a smelly mess and tempers ending in a surprising handshake are scenes from a 1923 story that got Hollywood cameras rolling over a whale of a Mississippi Coast story.
The truth reads better than any made-up screen script.
The best summary is found in the mid-April 1923 caption of a widespread newspaper photograph of a dead whale floating alongside a trawler:
“This 75-ton whale, towed into harbor at Biloxi, Miss., was the subject of one of the most unusual cases in American legal history. T.J. Desporte brought the whale into port for exhibition after tourists had sighted it. Rejelo Lopez of New Orleans obtained a writ of replevin, saying he saw it first. When the defendants gave no bond, U.S. Marshall J.C. Tyler offered it for sale to the highest bidder because it was perishable goods. The whale is the first ever exhibited on the Gulf of Mexico.”
Reporters questioned whether the marshal could really “seize and bring into court” the 65-foot whale. The court valued the whale’s ivory, lamp oil and possible ambergris at $10,000 — that’s $154,000 in today’s money.
The story begins when Pete Lissa, who shrimped for Desporte Packing Co., reported finding a dead whale near Hog Island, described as between Ship Island and the Chandeleurs.
Plant owner T.J. Desporte, fisherman Paul Taconi and Ben Bayley quickly prepared their own whale expedition, bound by friendship and the belief the whale was a lot more valuable. They left April 6 in a powerboat and found the whale drifting in the Gulf.
They towed it to shallow water, staked the monster, then attached a paper claim. Reported this newspaper: “Mr. Desporte is planning to send out an expedition to bring the whale in the Biloxi harbor for exhibition purposes.”
The three returned to Biloxi, registered a U.S. Customs Office claim and prepared to bring back the whale booty. Meanwhile, boats filled with thrill-seekers, national press and Hollywood news crews headed out to see the whale for themselves.
One WWI boat, Sub-chaser 264, captained by Tony Palmer, engineered by Leo Ohr, Felix Moran and Floyd Lanius, took too many passengers. The 150 got more excitement than they bargained for when the engines quit in a storm.
Meanwhile, on Friday the 13th, the Biloxi three learn that five boatmen and their lawyers arrived from New Orleans to claim the whale. Led by Rojelio Lopez, they had filed an affidavit for repossession, claiming they saw it first and staked it first with a paper claim. The Biloxi three claimed they never saw any such claim.
The U.S. Marshal charged with protecting the dead whale deputized Ben Bayley to keep watch. Surprised? The Louisiana claimers had named only Desporte. By this time the whale had been towed off Deer Island and covered with a canopy, so Bayley settled down to watch as hundreds, perhaps thousands, paid quarters for a peek.
The Biloxians refused to make bond so April 21 became auction day. Smells were ripe. Read one newspaper ad: “For Sale: One real large whale, not alive or in pink of condition. Any reasonable offer will be accepted by U.S. Deputy Marshal Coon.”
The “large number of potential bidders” left empty-handed. The Louisianians and Biloxi three settled out of court, apparently agreeing to split the profits from whale oil after they towed the beast to Horn Island.
They boiled the blubber, cleaned the bones and paid for laboratory analysis on a greasy mass they hoped was ambergris, a scent-retaining substance worth its weight in gold in the perfume business. The blubber was overcooked and worthless. Ambergris results were negative.
The value was the skeleton, now in pieces in Desporte’s warehouse. Both Biloxi and New Orleans wanted them for display but when The Times-Picayune sided with the Coast, the bones were donated to Biloxi and put on display in the popular Naval Reserve Park.
Time turned the bones porous. Theft lessened their numbers. Then in World War II the park became part of the land that created Keesler Air Force Base.
Imagine the delight of Pvt. Robert Hale, 19 and from Illinois, when he stumbled upon what he thought to be “the find of the century.” Thinking the whale bones were dinosaur, Hale put a vertebrae in a box and gave an acquaintance $3 to mail it to his former biology teacher for identification.
In 1987 Hale was back as a Keesler civilian instructor and I got to interviewed him about the rest of the story:
“Well Hugh Rice never got his bone and I never got my $3 back. I think the sergeant pocketed the money and threw out the box. As for the rest of the vertebrae — and that’s all I ever saw — I don’t know what happened to them. They were probably plowed under.”
Kat Bergeron, a veteran feature writer specializing in Gulf Coast history and sense of place, is retired from the Sun Herald. She writes the Mississippi Coast Chronicles column as a freelance correspondent. Reach her at BergeronKat@gmail.com or at Southern Possum Tales, P.O. Box 33, Barboursville, VA 22923.