Gulf Hamstery

[2] In 1946 Albert Marsh of Mobile, Alabama, won a hamster as payment for a $1 gambling debt.

[2] This hamster came probably from the breeding stock managed by Guy Henry Faget in Carville, Louisiana.

[3] Marsh was successful in part because of the professionalism he brought to the art of hamster husbandry.

[6] On 10 February 1948, with the help of the governor of Alabama and others, Marsh was successful in convincing the California State Department of Agriculture to designate Syrian hamsters as "normally domesticated animals".

[9] The two largest hamsteries founded in this way were Engle Laboratory Animals and the Lakeview Hamster Colony.

[11] At the time he was an employee of Owens-Illinois and living in New Jersey, and he founded the hamstery after refusing his employer's request that he move with his family to work in another location.