Now That’s What I Call a Sticky Situation

I’ve always taken molasses for granted. The dark, syrupy sweetener is a byproduct of sugar production. We always had around the house growing up and I would occasionally add it to hot cereals like oatmeal and malt-o-meal. My mother uses it for gingersnaps and her wonderful oatmeal pie. It’s always just been around, sitting peacefully in a kitchen cabinet. I never had a reason to fear it, or so I thought.

On an unusually warm January day in 1919, the seemingly benign molasses became a murderer. That day, January 15, a rooftop storage tank owned by the Purity Distilling Company burst, spewing over 2 million gallons of sticky death into the streets of Boston¹. The molasses moved through the streets at 35 miles per hour (slow as molasses in January) in a wave estimated to be over 10 feet high. The wave smashed several buildings and moving at least one from its foundations. It also destroyed a section of elevated train track. After the wave subsided 21 people had been killed and another 150 had been injured. At least 10 horses also met with death that day.

Rescue efforts were hampered by the thick, heavy molasses. The first on the scene were sailors from the U. S. S. Nantucket. Police, the military, and the Red Cross also helped in search and rescue efforts. The injured were so numerous that a temporary hospital was set up near the disaster site. It took four days of wading through muck before the last of the victims were hauled from the molasses.

After rescue efforts were completed, clean up began. The city hauled salt water from the harbor to was away the syrup, with limited success. Molasses also had to be pumped out of cellars in the area. In all, the cleaning took over 87,000 person-hours to complete. It was said that Boston smelled like molasses for decades afterwards.

Then began the delightful battle of litigation. Suit was brought against United States Industrial Alcohol Company, Purity Distilling Company’s parent company. The company countered, blaming anarchists for blowing up the tank. In the end, after a six year legal battle, USIA paid out over $600,000.

Interestingly, on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment which ushered in Prohibition was ratified. It went into effect one year later. Perhaps if it had been enacted sooner, Purity distilling would not have had such a murderous amount of molasses on hand.

—-

1. Molasses is what rum is made out of, which is why a distillery had so much.