9/24/2023 0 Comments Boston molasses flood converswA wave of molasses, estimated by some to be as high as 15 feet, and moving at a speed of approximately 35 miles per hour, swept through the area. Shortly after noon, on that day in 1919, a storage tank containing over 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed in the city’s North End. Tuesday, Januis the 100 th anniversary of Boston’s Great Molasses Flood. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Panorama of the Molasses Disaster site. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. But the tank's destruction brought an end to 300 years of tradition.Ĭopyright © 2019 NPR. It had long been a major part of the city's industry, from the key ingredient in colonial baked beans to World War I munitions. PRESS: But today molasses is not a common sight on the Boston waterfront. NICK LABONTE: Supposedly, you can still smell the molasses when it gets hot enough. Just ask Nick LaBonte from Polcari’s Coffee. PRESS: Even today, the flood lives in neighborhood folklore. And the molasses flood is so big that it knocks off the front page the Prohibition Amendment, which essentially passes the night of the molasses flood, and it knocks the Versailles peace talks, the talks that ended World War I, off the front page. PULEO: Boston has seven daily newspapers at the time. PRESS: For a short time, the story was all anyone could talk about. PULEO: That architects need to show their work, that engineers need to sign and seal their plans, that building inspectors need to come out and look at projects - all of that comes about as a result of the great Boston molasses flood case. PRESS: Stephen Puleo says it set the stage for future class-action lawsuits and completely changed the relationship between business and government. PULEO: The first case in which expert witnesses were called to a great extent - engineers, metallurgists, architects, technical people. PRESS: Shortly after the flood, 119 plaintiffs took up a civil lawsuit against U.S. And unfortunately, we pulled his arm off. HOWE: And there was an arm sticking out from underneath the wheel of a truck. He and other sailors were some of the first people on the scene, as he recalled in a 1981 interview with the Stoneham Public Library. PRESS: Harry Howe was on leave from the Navy for the weekend. HARRY HOWE: We saw this big cloud of brown dust and dirt and a slight noise. PRESS: When the tank burst, it unleashed a 30-foot-high wave of 2.3 million gallons of molasses that moved 35 mph down Commercial Street. It was very customary for children of the North End to go and collect molasses with pails. PULEO: There were often comments made by people around the vicinity that this tank would shudder and groan every time it was full. Though only a few years old at the time of the flood, the tank showed signs of instability. PRESS: The tank was used to store molasses, which came on ships from the Caribbean, until it could be transported to a nearby distillery where it was expected to become rum in the last days before Prohibition. PULEO: This was one of the busiest commercial sites in all of Boston. But a hundred years ago, you'd find a bustling port, a municipal yard and an elevated railway. JULIA PRESS, BYLINE: Stephen Puleo is the author of "Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919." We weave through narrow streets to the top of Copp's Hill for a panoramic view of the spot where a 50-foot-tall steel tank once stood.īaseball fields now line Boston Harbor. STEPHEN PULEO: We're in Boston's North End on Hanover Street, which is, I would say, the main street in the North End for activity, for businesses, for restaurants. On its centennial, reporter Julia Press looks back at the accident's history and impact. In Boston on January 15, 1919, a tank of molasses burst, releasing a thick, sugary tsunami that killed 21 people and injured 150.
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