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Molasses crashes through Boston's
North End

A 50-foot tall tank ruptured, sending 2.3 million gallons of molasses rushing through the neighborhood.

At midday on January 15, 1919, Boston's North End was full of workers and residents venturing outdoors to enjoy unseasonably warm weather. At about 1 p.m., they heard a low rumble. At first, many assumed it was a Boston Elevated train approaching. But, within minutes, they realized something was very wrong. A 50-foot tall tank full of industrial grade molasses had ruptured, sending a 2.3 million gallon wave of molasses rushing through the crowded North End.

The hulking molasses tank had been built by Purity Distilling Company only a few years earlier, in 1915. The tank measured 50-feet tall, and rose over the Boston Elevated Railroad tracks that ran next next to it.

Tankers delivered shipments of molasses to Copps Hill Wharf, where it was pumped into the tank and stored until it could be sent to distilleries on train cars, like the one below.

Though the tank had only been built a few years earlier in 1915, local residents knew that it leaked. According to author Stephen Puleo, North End children collected pails of the sticky, sweet molasses. When locals complained that they could see the molasses seeping out at the tank's seams, Purity Distilling painted the tank brown, to disguise the oozing molasses. Structural engineers later reported that the tank's walls were far too thin to hold the heavy molasses that the tank stored. Furthermore, the chemical composition of the tank's walls made them vulnerable to cracking. On January 15, 1919, a combination of the tank's shoddy construction, a sudden temperature change, and a large new shipment of molasses resulted in a rupture of the tank's walls.

The wave of molasses rushed through the North End at about 35 miles per hour. It knocked an Elevated train off of its tracks, crushed buildings, moved a firehouse and other buildings off their foundations, and suffocated both humans and animals. The crumpled pieces of the tank littering the debris field showed the force of the molasses wave.