San Luis Obispo’s Wandering Whale Statue Needs a Home

Every Goodwill in the country is full of stuff you never knew you needed. As local TV station KSBY reports, though, visitors to San Luis Obispo, California’s outpost now have the ability to consider a truly life-changing purchase: a 40-year-old, 4-ton sperm whale with a crab pot embedded in its head, made out of steel pipes and concrete.

Homeless Whale statue still looking for home. @angelm_russell reports:https://t.co/MtTmHvm3pe#SLO #SanLuisObispo #MorroBay #HomelessWhale pic.twitter.com/CN5iZoDfT9

— KSBY (@KSBY) July 4, 2017

If concrete sperm whales could talk, this one would certainly have a story to tell. Since it can’t, its creator, Donald E. Hedrick, has picked up the slack, writing out the whale’s detailed history on www.homelesswhale.org.

Hedrick built the whale over the course of 5 months in 1975 and ‘76. Its original home was a seafood restaurant called The Whale’s Tail, where the many kids who liked to climb on its head made the charming cetacean “the most photographed thing in Morro Bay,” Hedrick writes. “It has been guessed that a million people have had their picture taken in front of that whale.”

In 2011, the Whale’s Tail lost its lease, and the business that replaced it was required to expand the sidewalk out front. “The whale could not suck in its gut to pull in the one foot it would have intruded into the planned new sidewalk,” writes Hedrick, “so it had to go.”

#homelesswhale visit homelesswhale.org I didn’t know the story until I visited the site…a true artist’s struggle to please a client and find a home for his work. Handmade and custom quality work is something people are taking for granted..it makes me sad to see other artists and creators fighting “the man” because other people are fucking sheep. Creators,Do not sell yourselves short, do not be intimidated by hagglers and know your worth. If I had a home to accommodate this whale I’d do it in a heartbeat…I’d want it finished by the artist and I’d cook meals out of his head as intended. #saveallwhales #pismobeach

A post shared by Laura May (@sheisthebee) on Sep 28, 2015 at 10:58pm PDT

The city told Hedrick that he could have it back, as long as he did the work of removing and transporting it. He did: “it impressed him that an old man would work so hard with a jackhammer,” he told KSBY. And he has: he’s been touring the whale around ever since, bringing it to “personal appearances” at community and ocean-related events in an attempt to drum up a buyer.

Thus far, there have been no takers, though—thus this most recent personal appearance, outside of Goodwill.

If you’d like to save this particular whale, you can write to Hedrick at the email address listed at the bottom of his website. But be warned: after all the whale has been through, he’s considering serious offers only. “It must be the right thing to do,” he writes.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that’s only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.