To the uninitiated, mentioning a Great Molasses Flood might conjure up cartoonish images of molasses flowing through the streets. But to those in Boston and more specifically the North End, the molasses flood was no joke. Ninety four years ago, on January 15, 1919, a disaster befell the city the likes that hadn’t been seen before.
It started at the Purity Distilling Company’s facility which, through the distillation of the molasses into alcohol, produced ethyl alcohol. A tank on Commercial Street, holding about 2,300,000 gallons of molasses, collapsed on that moderately-temperatured January day, sending molasses gushing through the streets with such force that the girders and railway lines at Boston’s elevated railway on Atlantic Avenue were damaged. 26,000,000 pounds of molasses barreled through the streets at about 35 miles per hour. Witnesses recall hearing what sounded like machine-gun fire (which turned out to be the rivets shooting out of the collapsing tank) while the ground quaked as if a train were passing by. Buildings in the area had their foundations swept out from under them and many city streets were flooded in up to three feet of molasses. Among the wreckage it would eventually be discovered that twenty-one people died during the flooding, varying in ages from 10 to 76 years old. The disaster didn’t discriminate. Young children, older men, housewives and laborers alike lost their lives that day.
The tragedy could have been even worse if not for the USS Nantucket being docked at the nearby Navy Yard. Moments after the flooding began, cadets from the training ship arrived by foot in the North End and began pulling people out of the molasses to safety while keeping curious onlookers at bay during the rescue. Eventually, other members of the Navy, Army, Red Cross and the Boston Police Department arrived to take on the search and rescue mission. They spent four days looking for the bodies of victims with the hope they would find more survivors as well. Thanks to the large number of people involved in clean-up efforts, it ended up taking about two weeks to remove all the molasses. For months after the flood, you could still see the brown of the molasses seeping through the Boston Harbor.
In looking for reasons for the disaster, it was found that the collapsed tank was constructed poorly. That issue, coupled with the fact that the temperature that day rose from two degrees all the way to forty-one degrees, is what is believed to be the reason for the collapse and flood. The United States Alcohol Industrial Company, which owned the Purity Distilling Company, was found responsible for the tragedy and, after three years of hearings, eventually was forced to pay approximately $600,000 in costs to victims of the flood.
The Great Molasses Flood might be an obscure footnote in the history of Boston to some, but it is still very much in the memories of the residents of the North End. In 2003, local author and historian Stephen Puleo’s book Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, in which he gives the first full account of the flood, was published to national, critical acclaim, even becoming a finalist for the prestigious Julia Ward Howe Award for literary merit. To further ensure the tragedy is never forgotten, at the site of the flood, located where now stands the Langone and Puopolo Parks, the Bostonian Society placed a memorial plaque which reads:
“On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank at 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated railroad tracks, crushed buildings and inundated the neighborhood. Structural defects in the tank combined with unseasonably warm temperatures contributed to the disaster.”