Scorching molasses flooded the streets of Boston on January 15, 1919, killing 21 people and injuring dozens more. Molasses gushed out of a huge tank in the United States Industrial Alcohol Company building in the heart of town.
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The United States Industrial Liquor Building was located on Commercial Street near North End Park in Boston. It was near lunchtime on January 15 and Boston was experiencing unusually warm weather as workers loaded freight train cars into the large building. Next to the workers was a 58-foot-high tank filled with 2.5 million gallons of raw molasses.
Suddenly, the bolts holding the bottom of the tank exploded, firing like bullets, and the hot molasses rushed out. An eight-foot-high wave of molasses swept over the freight cars and crashed into the building’s doors and windows. The few workers in the cellar of the building had no chance because the liquid was leaking and submerging them.
The huge amount of molasses then spilled onto the street outside. He literally knocked over the local fire station, then pushed back the support beams of the elevated train line. The hot, sticky substance then drowned and burned five workers in the public works department. In all, 21 people and dozens of horses were killed in the flood. It took weeks to clean molasses from the streets of Boston.
This disaster also produced an epic legal battle, as more than 100 lawsuits were filed against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. After a six-year investigation involving 3,000 witnesses and 45,000 pages of testimony, a special auditor ultimately determined that the company was at fault because the tank used was not strong enough to hold the molasses. Almost $ 1 million has been paid in settlement of claims.
READ MORE: Why the Great Molasses Flood Was So Deadly
