Tragic tale of the whales displayed at a Cincinnati resort in 1877
Come, listen to a tale about a whale on a hill.
When a salesman brought a living white whale, a beluga, to Cincinnati to be exhibited at the Lookout House, a hilltop resort in Mount Auburn.
As one might suspect, this absurd tale does not have a happy ending.
On June 7, 1877, The Enquirer announced A.A. Stewart, a salesman for the Aetna Life Insurance Co. in Cincinnati, had purchased a white whale from the New York Aquarium for $10,000 plus the expenses for capture and transportation.
The New York Aquarium was nothing like the scientific aquatic museums of today, but rather a P.T. Barnum-style menagerie operated by showman W.C. Coup.