I was remembering that Col. Whelen didnt actually design the .35 Whelen, so I asked google, and Wiki suggested it was designed by James Howe of G&H while both men were at the Frankford Arsenal....I cant remember where I actually read about it originally, tho it MIGHT have been a 90s G&A or the Speer #12 reloading manual.
Its one of those rounds I've always kinda wanted, as VT says its hard to justify in a practical sense, but still its a want.
I have the two early 1920's articles written by Townsend Whelen:
American Heavy Caliber Rifles for Large Game. What date they are, I don't know as the page was larger than the Xerox copy, so the date is not recorded.
I also looked at the Wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.35_Whelen
The first of Townsend Whelens articles is one on the 400 Whelen, and in that he stated he designed that. He also uses
"I" when talking about that cartridge.
"The first cartridge that I designed was one of the maximum possible caliber considering the limiting factors of the rimless 30-06 case. This cartridge my friends have insisted in calling the ".400 Whelen"."
The next month he is writing about the .35 Whelen. In that article he uses "We" when talking about that cartridge. Such as
"We started out in much the same way as we did with the .400 cartridge, taking all those precautions necessary to assure a powerful, accurate, safe, and dependable cartridge. At first we planned to use the 250 grain guilding metal jacketed bullet of the 35 W.C.F cartridge, but after we got well under way we found that we could obtain a better 250 grain bullet with a spitzer open which would be more satisfactory in many was particularly in having less air resistance and thus giving a flatter trajectory over long ranges, so we switched to it."
People want authenticity. It is a particular human trait to want a hero. A hero, who all alone, killed all the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Our stories from the beginning of time, from Gilagmesh to now, follow this trope. We desperately believe in, and want, "
the big man" who conquers all. Our histories are stories of BIG MEN who by themselves defeated evil, changed history, etc.
Real life is more complicated. People work with people, and big projects take the skills and efforts of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and even so, we still attribute the success or failure to one BIG MAN. It is easier, makes things simpler. The guy at the top makes a big difference, but so does the guy at the bottom who does his job correctly, even though in the big scheme of things, that job was small and of little duration.
So maybe after creating the 400 Whelen, James Howe brought up the idea to Townsend Whelen, and they both added ideas, and worked together to develop a final project. If later Townsend Whelen claims that Mr Howe alone deserves credit for its development, we have to ignore the "we" statements in the first article. In the 1920's, the project sounds like a collaboration. Maybe by 1940 Mr Whelen feels his contribution was far less than Mr Howe's to the point the cartridge was Mr Howe's.
This was before the modern "selfie" era. Today narcissists reign and take credit for every success, and narcissistic behavior is front and center in the entertainment world. In 1940, a self centered, grandiose, horn tooting braggart was shunned. Today, that same individual would have a huge following on line. We have lots of people who are famous for being famous, and legions of no talent individuals seeking to be famous anyway they can.
Mr James Virgil Howe lived to 1969, if this is the same James Howe:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/219422830/james-virgil-howe I cannot recall reading anything by him on these cartridges, maybe Mr Howe liked to stay in the background.
