The cries of gulls and the crash of waves have echoed across Ballast Point for centuries.
In the late 1850s, however, another sound became part of the shoreline — the clang of iron tools, the roar of fires heating massive iron kettles and the voices of men processing whales hauled in from the Pacific.
It’s difficult to imagine now, but one of California’s earliest shore-based whaling stations operated on Point Loma, transforming a quiet stretch at the entrance to San Diego Bay into the center of a short-lived but profitable industry. While Point Loma is best known for its military heritage and spectacular coastal scenery, it also played an unexpected role in supplying whale oil to a nation that at the time depended on it for light, machinery and industry…