Balto (c. 1919 – March 14, 1933) was an Alaskan husky and sled dog belonging to musher and breeder Leonhard Seppala. He achieved fame when he led a team of sled dogs driven by Gunnar Kaasen on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported from Anchorage, Alaska, to Nenana, Alaska, by train and then to Nome by dog sled to combat an outbreak of the disease. Balto's celebrity status, and that of Kaasen's, resulted in a two-reel motion picture, a statue in Central Park, and a nationwide tour on the vaudeville circuit.
A falling out between Seppala and Kaasen resulted in Balto and his teammates being sold under disputed circumstances to a traveling circus operator and ultimately housed in squalor at a dime museum in Los Angeles. When news stories emerged in February 1927 about his poor living conditions, a two-week fundraising effort in Cleveland, Ohio, led to the successful purchase of Balto and his team by the citizenry of Cleveland. Balto lived in ease at the Brookside Zoo until his death on March 14, 1933, at the age of 14; his body was subsequently mounted and displayed in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where it remains to this day. While the subject of numerous cultural depictions and homages, including a 1995 animated film, Balto's role in the serum run remains controversial as contemporary media coverage focused almost entirely on him over the efforts of the other mushers and dogs—most notably, Seppala and his lead dog Togo—and has more recently undergone historical reappraisals.
