I love this storyThe Boston Molasses Disaster
At the turn of the 20th century there stood a large, outdoor vat of molasses on the North End of Boston, MA. It was fifteen feet high, and 90 feet in diameter. It held over 2,300,000 gallons of molasses.
During World War I, this molasses was used for munitions but as came to a close the owners of this large vat had to find another way to make money off of it. It just so happened that Prohibition would soon become a reality. So it would make sense to stockpile all the alcohol you could before it became illegal to sell the “demon alcohol” at it just so happened that molasses is great for making liquor.
This was all well and good, except for the fact that the tank was shoddily built. It had numerous leaks and was, in fact, painted brown to hide these leaks. People would actually come up to the tank with jars if they were running out of molasses because it was so readily available at the neighborhood molasses tank.
The other problem was that it often made ominous rumbling sounds. The owners hired a night guard who had the job checking on the tank at night to see if it had exploded.
On January 15, 1919 the tank exploded. The ominous rumbling was louder than ever and then the sound of machine guns filled the air (it was the rivets and other metal popping off the tank). Then the explosion was heard and if you were outside in the area, you were pretty much screwed.
A shockwave from the explosion knocked everyone in the area to the ground and then just as they were getting up it came back knocking them down again. At that point they may have noticed the wave of molasses coming at them. If you’ve heard the phrase “slow as molasses” then it might surprise you that this 15 foot wave that was 167 feet wide moved at 35 miles per hour.
The wave enveloped people and knocked down buildings. 27 people died and 110 were injured. Then there was the issue that they had to clean everything up, and if you know anything about molasses it’s hard to clean up the tiniest of spills as its so very sticky. It took almost 87,000 man hours to clean up the mess. It cost over $6 million dollars to repair all the damages.
Today, almost 100 years later, some say that on very hot days in North Boston the faint smell of molasses lingers.
