Episode 657: Boston’s Great Molasses Flood of 1919
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Yeah.

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Want more? Check out at shopify.com slash wondery. All lowercase and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity. Shopify.com slash wondery. Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Alina. And this right here, this little thing you're listening to, Morbid. Morbid.

This is morbid. I was trying to sound like Victoria from White Lotus, thank you. There you go. I think that's her name, Parker Posey's character. I have no idea, I haven't watched that yet. Ugh! I know. I don't... You know what? I'm trying, it takes me a long time for... I don't know if it's your bag.

I don't, every time someone mentions it, I'm like, maybe. Yeah. I don't know why it doesn't. I love it. And I, it's like a great show. I would recommend, I would Rebecca Nend it to most people. I was going to say, I don't know if, I don't know if you would love it. You don't know if I like it? No. I mean, maybe I'll give it a shot. I mean, go for it. I mean, like do it. You're your own person. You're alive. Live your best life, bitch.

But I love, I'm liking this season. And I was just playing Alina a clip of Parker Posey's interview where she does all her weird voices. Her southern accent. Tsunami! Tsunami! Well, that was a good one. That was really good. Thank you. I liked that. Thank you so much. No, Ash has just gotten me into Yellow Jackets. So I'm almost done with the first season. I dig it. She's not, yeah, she's not current. So don't give her any spoilers because I will come for you. Yeah, don't give me spoilers. I'm trying to. I'm current. Yeah. Guys, we're in the fucking trenches. In the thick of it.

I'm trying to get there. It takes us a long time to get through a show, John and I. They're coming up on episode seven of the first season. There's so many things I want to say. It's really good, though. I was going to signify something to the listeners, but I can't. I love Christina Ricci with the fire of a thousand suns. I would lay down my life for you. Yeah, I love her so much. That's all I can say about it. But

Also, I'm sure we're weeks out at this point, but... Probably. Pretty cool that Tobias Forge was on the show. Do you guys understand how hard it was for both of us to keep that from you? It was so hard.

so hard. Right now, you're glowing. I'm glowing. It was so fun. It was so fun. He's always a fun guest. He's delightful. He's a very, very nice man. He is delightful. And we got to have Doug Bradley on. I love, Doug congratulated me because he congratulated Tobias on his success. He congratulated Elena on her book. And he said, I didn't

I didn't congratulate you on anything, Ash. I said, that's fine. I just exist. And he congratulated me on being wonderful. Just being wonderful. I said, thank you so much. Doug Bradley forever. I'll remember that for the rest of my life. Doug and his wife, Steph, are two of my favorite people. They're very cool. They're just delightful people. Yeah.

But yeah, that was a fun little like surprise we had because Tobias and Doug are our bro-ies there. Because he called him Toby through the whole thing. Toby. It was amazing. Doug Bradley's voice is the most calming voice I've ever heard in my life. Very soothing. I need to be like, can I call him when I'm having a panic attack? You should. Just be like, Doug. Why not? Just be like, Ted, calm me down.

He reads books on YouTube. Oh, yeah. So if you ever want to hear Doug Bradley read a book, you know, that's what I'll do next time I have a panic attack. He can just read you a story. But it was a lot of fun. We got to talk about the new album, which has finally been announced, Skeletor.

Very cool. And I got to hear it. Alina got to hear it. A little bit of a flex. Real early. That's a big flex. I'm excited about it. You guys are going to love it. And I can't wait to see everybody at the shows this year so we can all freak out together. It's got a different vibe. It does, but it's so fucking good. It's cool. I think it's a really cool vibe. It is so fucking good. And you guys have heard Satanized before.

so fun. The music video for that is awesome. We got to see Papa, Papa Perpetua. And we got some inside scoop on that music video. Yeah. So if you haven't listened to that episode, you gotta go listen. Yeah, you gotta listen. There's a cool fun fact in there. There is. Toby confirmed. Toby confirmed. If I may.

It was really cool, though. And you guys have been so sweet. The comments on that video so far, you guys are just really sweet because you know how excited I am about it. Everybody's just been really kind and I appreciate that. As they should be, Queen. This is a win for all of us. It is. And you're all going to fucking love the new album. And I can't wait to see you and hang out with you at the ghost shows because I love running into people who listen to the show at those. As Adore Delano says.

Party. Party. Let's go. Party. So that's really fun. We hope you dug it. 2025 has been pretty sweet outside of the entire world's crumbling. Well, you just, I think it makes you. In my own little bubble, it's been. It makes you cling harder to the things that are. The wins. That are good. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like the wins. You got to celebrate the wins right now because like. Because they're few and motherfucking far between. Outside of those, it's rough. So celebrate your wins. Yes.

And also... Be excited about the things you want to be excited about. Exactly. I saw Elise Myers, who like, again, who doesn't love Elise Myers? I saw her say something about how she almost got embarrassed because she got very excited about something. Yeah. And someone told her to like calm it down. Fuck that. And she was like, I almost got embarrassed. And then I said, fuck that. Like, I am very lucky to be excited about things. So I'm going to continue to. And...

Why the fuck are you on the planet? Like, what does all of this even mean? Yeah. If you're not excited about things. Not all the time, obviously. Be excited about things. If something excites you and gets you going and makes you excited, be as excited as you want to be and don't feel embarrassed about it. And don't make... Because if...

Especially if other adults are trying to be like, oh, you're so weird. You're so cringy. That means that they've never had something to be that excited about. And what we should feel is pity for them. So make sure that you are excited about the things you should be because you have earned your excitement. Everybody's just looking for something to be excited about. Yeah, what are we on this planet for if you can't get excited about shit? I thought, you know, like...

Get excited. And get excited about whatever the fuck you want to. I'm excited. And I hope you all have shit to be excited for. Yes. I hope you do. Big, small, medium, in between. Doesn't matter. Be excited. I'm manifesting that for all of y'all. Yeah. I got a new couch and I am fucking stoked about it. Get excited about it. Go crazy. I just start jumping on the couch like Tom Cruise. Celebrate that. You just slide through the living room in your underwear. I just might. I just might. You can do that.

I love it. Was that Risky Business? Yeah, Risky Business. All the Tom Cruise. You know, it's so funny. I'm of the age that that just makes me think of Rob's character in Never Been Kissed. Oh my God. Yeah. That's also a great one. A great movie, but wow, don't ever think too deeply about it. No, definitely don't. Just take it for what it is. It's pretty horrifying when you think about it at its core. Watching that as an adult for the first time, you're like, oh. As a kid, I'm like, oh my God.

That's so cool. And then I watched it as an adult for the first time like a few years ago and I was like, oh no. This movie's dark as fuck. It is. It's dark. But I love it. It's a horror movie. It is a horror movie. At its core, it's a horror movie. That scene at the prom when they're dancing to the... No. It's...

It's Erase and Rewind. I have been obsessed with that song since I was like six years old because of that movie. That's a diabolical scene. It's a diabolical. That's the thing. That's the thing. It's rough. It's different. But you know what? I'm going to talk about something pretty terrible right now. Well, it is morbid. So...

Coming off of a really sneakily horrifying movie, we're going to go into something that is equally sneakily as horrifying. Oh, is it? Molasses. What? Yeah.

Yep. Like gingerbread cookie molasses? Yeah, like straight up molasses. We're going to talk about Boston's great molasses flood of 1919. If you've ever been on a duck tour, you know they mention it. Come on to Boston. We'll tell you all about it. We will. Oh my God. Do a duck tour. It's so fun. Do a duck tour if you come to Boston. It's a lot of fun. It is. They're silly. They're silly.

You get a lot of nifty little history facts. You'll learn a lot. You do. Also, do some of the... I'm not... We're not being paid by, like, the city of Boston to do this. I'm just like, if you're... Those walking tours, too. Oh, my gosh. I love those. A lot of them are fun. They are. They dress up like, you know, like they're from the period. Yeah. You know, we talk about the... Yeah. You know, the revolution, all the fun stuff. Do it. It's fun. Study the revolution. This was not...

great at all uh and it's like one of it's remembered and it's mentioned but i feel like it's

lesser remembered and mentioned as we go on. I didn't learn about this in school. Yeah, which is pretty terrible. Actually, the first time I ever learned about this was on a duck tour. Yeah, see, and that's crazy. The fact that we don't talk about this, like, it's a wild story, and it had a high death toll. This was a tragic, tragic event that happened in Boston. I don't know a lot about it. Yeah, it caused...

an unbelievable damage to one of the city's oldest neighborhoods and it injured more than 150 people. And 21 people died. Yeah. Including children. There were children that died. I mean, not, you know, like in one life over the other, but like, it's awful. Yeah. And again, for an event that was so like,

remarkable and very strange. Like it's a strange event. It is. A molasses flood. Like that's weird. It's still kind of unknown exactly what caused it to happen. It happened at the Purity Distilling Company. Their molasses storage tank was the one that burst and dumped its contents across the North End. And it really is one of Boston's most

Oh, absolutely.

had been through it. Been through it. That summer, the influenza pandemic hit the city really hard and there were more than 200 deaths by the end of the season. Thousands more were going to be lost before things were even under control. It was really bad.

The pandemic had forced a lot of the theaters, nightclubs, and restaurants to close down. We've seen that before. We've seen that repeat. And the city cemeteries had been forced to erect like circus tents essentially on the grounds in order to hide the backlog of unburied coffins from public view. Yeah. That's brutal.

Yeah, it was as though there was nowhere in the city that somebody could go to just avoid reminders of tragedy, loss, and hardship. It was not a good time. Now, in addition to the calamity caused by the flu, the end of World War I presented a lot of challenges to those whose businesses had been forced to kind of like pivot and reorient themselves to accommodate increased manufacturing needs of the military. Yeah.

The United States Industrial Alcohol Company, the USIA is what I'll call them. For example, they had been one of the nation's largest producers of industrial alcohol for the military during the war years. But with the demand for munitions kind of dropping in the final months of the war, the USIA kind of found themselves in a position of having to, again, pivot the other way and develop new products and strategies just to remain in business.

Now, before the war, a certain percentage of USIA's output was grain alcohol, and many on the company's board felt that the shift back to producing grain alcohol was precisely the type of quick pivot necessary to keep this company going, at least for a short term. Yeah.

The problem, though, was that retooling the Cambridge plant to produce grain alcohol was going to take a lot of time. And the production of the liquor itself took time, and time was not something that a lot of people had. It was not of the essence. Yeah, it was in short supply at that time. The constitutional amendment banning the manufacture and sales of alcohol in the U.S. had passed both houses the previous December and was set to go into effect in January 1920. Oh, no! Ba-da-ba!

That meant USIA would have just a little more than a year of production before ceasing operations completely. So they needed to get out all they could. Yeah, they got to get out. But the company, you know, determined that if they could distill a sufficient amount of alcohol in the first quarter, they would have enough time to get it bottled and shipped out before prohibition went into effect, thereby saving the company.

That November, USIA's company secretary, Arthur Gell, placed a large order for molasses from Cuba.

This was going to be scheduled to be delivered in mid-January 1919. That gave Jell and the company enough time to retrofit the Cambridge plant, you know, like get it ready to do this kind of production, to caulk the massive storage tank on Commercial Street, which was on Boston's Wharf, and develop a schedule for round-the-clock production once the molasses actually arrived. Now, Jell had been integral to the operations and production

really all the strategic planning of the company and had also been instrumental in guiding them through what was really like uncertainty in the war years. Like he helped them kind of stay the course. So if anyone could pull off the temporary orientation of this plant, it was going to be Joe. Maybe. Now to those who'd lost their jobs to the pandemic closures or, you know. So weird to hear that. It really is. Like history really does repeat itself. It surely does.

And so they either lost it to the pandemic closures or they lost it for, you know, in the downturn of demand for manufacturing. The USIA's new production strategy, even if it was temporary, was a welcome piece of news to them because they were like, I'll take anything at this point.

The retrofit of the distillery and the resealing of the tank meant dozens, if not hundreds, of new job opportunities were now arising. Which is great. And these were job opportunities for metal workers, machine operators, and plant hands alike.

All of whom were going to be working like round the clock overtime to get everything done on this like really tight turnaround timeline. Still, filling these positions wouldn't be as easy as it would be under normal circumstances because, again, the outbreak of the pandemic had kind of knocked out countless ordinary able-bodied workers. So it's not like everybody was ready to jump back to work.

So Jell was going to have to take what he could if he was going to have everything ready on time. He just had to work with it.

So already we're seeing like, uh-oh. Yeah, not great to start out like that. And I'm sure this isn't shocking, but unfortunately significant problems presented themselves almost immediately. Oh, goody. The North End tank, which was to hold the molasses when it arrived, had been pretty hastily built in 1915 to meet the unexpected demands of war. I feel like you don't want to hastily build a tank. A giant tank. Yeah, you don't want to do that. An A-gundi tank, really. No. No.

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Because of this, when the metal workers from Walter Fields and Sons began caulking the seams of the steel tank, the flaws were pretty apparent immediately. According to author Stephen Paleo, I believe it's Paleo, I hope I'm saying his name correctly. It sounded like you said his good name. His good name. I don't want to ruin his good name. I hope I'm saying his good name correctly.

Stephen, I hope I'm saying your good name correctly. So according to Stephen, he said, quote, molasses leaked from several different seams, squeezing through the rivets and sliding down the steel walls like lazy brown rivers, plopping onto the pavement below and spreading slowly into thick pools.

fun whenever the men would hose off the tank's exterior beads of dark molasses would just reappear almost immediately at the seams oh no we should probably empty that tank y'all yeah the job was frustrating and pretty arduous as well but finally just one day before christmas the tank was finished and it was deemed ready for the molasses shipment it's a christmas miracle christmas miracle we can fill it with molasses

On January 12th, 1919, the ship, which was called the Malero, arrived in Boston Harbor from Cuba carrying 1.3 million gallons.

600,000 gallons of which was going to be pumped into the USIA's tank in the north end of Molasses. Blink, blink, blink, blink. 1.3 million gallons came over on that ship. Damn. 600,000 gallons was going into that tank. I don't think there's any way for me to actually...

appropriately conceive of that in my mind. I just can't. My brain won't conceive of it. No. It's a lot of molasses. On one boat that came over? One ship. It was like a big cargo ship. I mean, yeah, of course. But damn. I know. That's crazy. It's crazy.

So despite the freezing temperatures and even colder wind chill, because remember we're in Boston in January. Honey, it's cold. The molasses, which had been warmed in advance, moved smoothly through the pump into the tank. And by the following morning, the shipment was completed. It probably smelled so good in there. Oh, so good. Like gingerbread cookies. Yeah, exactly. With their job done, the ship left the docks, headed for Brooklyn, where they were going to deliver the remainder of the molasses.

Now, not long after the ship had left the harbor, residents and workers in the area of the wharf began to hear some sounds.

they heard some loud cracking and pinging sounds. That's never a sound you really want to hear. So this was a sound the warm molasses was mixing with the cold, thick molasses that was already in the tank. Now, this was not entirely foreign to hear these kinds of sounds because since being built several years earlier, locals had grown accustomed to like some metallic groans emanating from the tank as like different liquids settled. Yeah. Because it is a cold tank. It's like...

You know, you're going to hear some sound. Yeah, and especially mixing the warm with the cold. Exactly. What the locals didn't know, though, at this time was that the mix of old and new molasses increased the temperature inside the tank, which set off the fermentation process and produced gases in that process. Oh, shit. With the tank now holding a whopping 2.3 million gallons of molasses. Holy shit.

It was nearly at full capacity. Not even completely. Leaving very little room for expansion. And it was just trapping the gases in this small amount of headspace remaining in the tank, which is not good. That's not good. Sometimes that happens with my sourdough starter and it sounds like there's a gas leak in my house. There you go. Drew and I were literally sitting on the couch one night and it was like,

That's scary. I was like, what the fuck? We literally searched everywhere. We were like, oh my god. And it was my fucking sourdough starter. Damn. Yeah. That's scary. That was very scary. That's why I can't do sourdough. I'm too scared. There's so many reasons you can't. Sourdough freaks Elena out. It's the feeding it. It's the... Elena thinks it's too human. It's that thing telling you it's hungry. And I just, I can't. I can't do it, man. I can't do it.

So the first few weeks of January in Boston, like normal, had been frigidly cold. Temperatures were as low as two degrees. But on the morning of the 15th,

As often happens. We got a heat wave. They awoke to find an unseasonably warm day. It's just suddenly like, oh, we're in spring now. And unseasonably warm for Boston in that time is like 48 degrees. We're like, shit. We're going on flip flops, babe. Holy shit. Oh, and it eventually reached into the 40s. I called it. We were there. A true Bostonian. That's it. Oh, when it hits the 40s, you're like, you don't have to wear a jacket. We're fine. No, I literally stopped wearing my jacket. Throw that sweatshirt on. Yes.

We're here for a light sweater day. I don't know how warm it is today, but I've been rolling without a jacket. Oh, it's gorgeous today. It's gorgeous. Let's see. I was just going to say we have to see. It's 43 degrees. It's 43 degrees. And I'm like, it's gorgeous. I'm like, oh my God. It's also so fucking windy out today. It is. It's literally got like 90 degree, 90 miles per hour winds. And we're like, it's beautiful out. Yeah, the wind gusts right now are 23 miles an hour.

Feels great outside. Sorry, 45. But we saw the sun, so there's that. Yeah, we always look for that. So yeah, it's been freezing in Boston, but on this day, the 15th of January, it was unseasonably warm in the 40s. So everybody wanted to go out, huh? Everyone's outside because it's gorgeous.

And you got to get some air. On the wharf, the workers from USIA, the workers there began preparing for the days to come when the giant molasses tank would be emptied onto railroad cars and taken to Cambridge where it was going to be fermented and processed. This was going to be a big job, so they were getting ready for it. All right. A little past 1230 p.m., everyone on the wharf was going about the usual business, loading, unloading cargo, milling about on lunch breaks, normal things.

After such a long period of freezing temperatures, the warm weather, you know, like we always say, it hits the 40s. It's early spring here. So, like, let's go. And many of the residents and workers, like we were saying, didn't want to miss a chance to be outside on such a lovely spring day. Because you get so fucking cooped up. And everything's dry and you feel like you just, like, you get cabin fever. That's what everyone's outside. Yeah. Like we were saying, everybody's outside. It's a beautiful day. Yeah.

Then they heard the sounds. Oh, God. I can't imagine. The sounds would freak me the fuck out. These are loud, scary sounds. It's like apocalyptic sounding, I feel. Oh, it's awful. And it was unlike anything they'd ever heard coming from the direction of the giant molasses tank. Later, Boston police officer Frank McManus would describe... That is... I could not let that go. I know, I couldn't. Frank...

Oh, Frankie McManus. That's like, yeah, that's Frankie McMahon. Ah, that's my guy. That's my gold boy. You know, Frankie McManus. Obsessed. You know, he would describe it as, quote, a machine gun like rat tat tat sound and an unearthly grinding and scraping, a bleeding that sounded like the wail of a wounded beast.

he should probably write something frankie mcmanus if you don't write a book frankie mcmanus is a goddamn damn um that's fucking horrifying though because you're probably sitting there like what the fuck is that like did the side of the earth just get cracked i just scared the apocalypse like the the four horsemen were on their way i'd be like what's going on you hear the trumpets yeah oh i'm still waiting that idea scares the shit out of me that like happens sometimes though

The trumpeting? Yeah, like people hear that shit. I think it's all fake, personally, but I appreciate it because it scares the shit out of me no matter what. I mean, of course it's fake because otherwise the end of the world would have happened. Like, it's definitely fake, but like the videos, whenever they used to show those, where it was like, we're hearing trumpeting in the sky. And they do. Sometimes people hear other things, though, that sound like it, and it's still scary as fuck. Yeah, no matter what. So I appreciate how terrifying it is. I don't want to hear shit like that. No, I don't want that. Keep that away from me.

Royal Albert Lehman, a brakeman for the Boston Elevated Railroad, was driving the train when, quote, his ears filled with the scream of tearing steel. Oh, God. North End resident Martin Clowerty heard a deep rumble that woke him from his sleep.

Joseph Hiller was on his way back to work on the docks when he heard it and he felt the rumble. When he looked in the direction of the harbor, he, quote, saw the big tank open up and fall apart. Holy shit. While the wall of molasses, 50 feet high in the front...

rolled out over the ground with a seething hissing sound. 50 feet high. And if you've ever baked with molasses, just a jar of molasses. It is so viscous. Think of that.

And now think of like what that can do. It's like the blob. It's literally like a horror movie. Well, and I assume like, I mean, it's rushing at you first of all. Oh, yeah. It's going to asphyxiate you. So in a second, you can't move. And like you're, it's like quicksand. Oh, yeah. You're stuck in it. Think of how sticky that is and thick. Oh, my God. How did they even clean that up? I know.

So later that day, the Boston Globe reported once the low rumbling sound was heard, no one had a chance to escape. Oh, that's horrifying. And the scene on the docks, which was very calm, very serene a few minutes earlier, had been thrown into total chaos and panic.

From his train car on the elevated tracks, Lehman, who we talked about before, looked out the window and saw, quote, a black mass bearing down on him, darkening the sky. Jesus Christ. Just before he felt the tracks buckle and the train begin to tip. Oh, God. In his bedroom on the third floor, Martin Clowardy came to several feet of molasses. And he said, it didn't dawn on me that it was molasses I was in, but it was already all around me.

And he's in his apartment. So he broke through his fucking, oh my God. Martin told a reporter from the Globe, I thought I was overboard. A pile of wreckage was holding me down and a little way from me, I saw my sister. Oh my God. Now the Clowardy's house had been hit by the giant wave of molasses and knocked from its foundation. Oh. Take that in. It had been knocked, a house was knocked from its foundation.

So he, like, he came to where? Like, he was, he was, the whole house was sent into the elevated train line. Oh my god. Yeah. Martin said, it seemed as if the house had split in two when it hit the elevated structure, and I was in one side and my people in the other. What the fuck? The Clowardys' house was just one of the many structures in the neighborhood that was completely demolished by the wave of molasses. Oh my god.

According to the Globe, the buildings seemed to cringe up as though they were made of pasteboard. As Mary Musco looked out her window and across the street to the Clowardys' house, she said she saw the entire building, quote, fly into the air. Oh, my God. Yeah. You can't even conceive of that. You can't conceive of it. No. Like, it's so gnarly what happened here. Yeah.

Moving as fast as 35 miles per hour, the wave of molasses that flooded the north end devastated everything in its path. Of course it did. Six buildings in the immediate vicinity of the tank were completely gone, just totally demolished, flattened. Within seconds. And one of the steel beams supporting the elevated train line was knocked down. A steel beam. A steel beam.

Oh, that breaks my heart. Yeah. Oh, I hate that.

On Commercial Street, a man walking underneath the elevated train line was thrown from his feet and sent several feet into the air before landing hard on his face and hands. Oh, God. Nearby, Charles Whitby was driving his wagon down Commercial Street when he was struck by the wave. He was thrown from the cart as he had flipped, and it sent him into the brake wall and killed his horse. Oh.

A few yards from him, two train cars had been knocked from the tracks and thrown into nearby lampposts, knocking them free from the ground.

So the lampposts are flying like this is literally catastrophic. A disaster. Apocalyptic. Just things, houses, trains, cars flying. And it's probably not occurring to anyone in the moment that it's what the fuck is happening. So they're probably just like, what the fuck is this? Like, how would you ever occur to you that that's molasses? What the fuck is this? Right.

At the diner on Commercial Street across from the wharf, Robert Burnett was eating lunch with his family when the tank burst. He said there was a rumble, no roar or explosion. That's what he told the Boston Post. And he said, I thought it was an elevated train until I heard a swish as if a wind was rushing. Then it became dark.

I looked out the window and saw this great black wave coming. It didn't rush. It just rolled slowly. It seemed like the side of a mountain falling into space. Oh, God. Of course, it came quickly, but we all had a chance to jump and run before the windows began to crack. Then it poured molasses. Holy shit. Like, what? How do you even, like, look at that and...

How do you even do anything? I'd be like, what is happening right now? I'd be frozen with fear. Yeah. He grabbed his family and they fled the restaurant. But by the time they'd reached the front door, the molasses had reached the top of the 14-step flight of stairs, blocking the only exit. Oh, no. Instead, the Burnetts rushed up to the roof where they watched in absolute horror as the entire neighborhood was overtaken by this flood. Just watched from a roof. This is insane.

Now, naturally, those closest to the tank suffered the worst of the damage. A freight agent at the Boston and Worcester Street Railway Company, H.M. Dorley, was working in one of the sheds about 15 feet from the tank when he heard the giant, loud, massive crack and the ground shook. So weird, as you're saying that, the wind is going crazy and shaking the house. It did.

Doralee told the Post, the broken parts of the tank missed our shed only by a matter of inches. If they had stuck it, well, I wouldn't be talking with you. Parts of the tank struck other houses and they crumpled like eggs. How we escaped, I'm at a loss to explain. Little short of a miracle. To say a house cracked like an egg. Crumpled like an egg. Crumpled like an egg. Oh my God. Yeah.

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B.E. Kingsley, who was a worker at the Bay State Railway, was equally as close to the tank when it broke. He said where the tank stood, there was no tank. Instead was a mighty wall of some kind, a giant wave of molasses, and it was sweeping rapidly down upon the office, gaining momentum every second. I turned and ran into the outer office, calling a warning into the clerks there.

So he and his co-workers ran for the exit, but it was too late because a 15-foot wave of molasses hit the building and sent everyone and everything inside flying as the building collapsed around them. Jesus. It wasn't just those working under the tank or near the tank that suffered, though. As more than 2 million gallons of molasses was tearing through the very narrow streets.

It swept up everything, people, animals, everything, hurling them several feet into the air, just sucking them down. Those not in the direct path of the flood still risked being hit by heavy timbers and other debris that was flying out of this flood. When the Clowerty's house was toppled by the wave, Martin's mother, 65-year-old Bridget Clowerty, was picked up by the wave and thrown across the street. Oh, my God.

Bridget landed hard on the ground and then a large piece of the home's roof fell on top of her and crushed her to death. Oh my God. It's unthinkable. You live 64 years and that's how you go out? Yeah. Jesus.

It's so violent. Oh, it's awful. It's brutal. That's the thing. It's violent. And what's crazy is this is sometimes looked at, especially from people outside of Massachusetts or Boston, as like, oh, the cream molasses. Like a silly thing. Like silly. It used to smell like molasses in Boston afterwards on hot days. And it's like...

That's horrible because it's just a reminder. And it's like you don't, but nobody teaches anybody about it. So it's like, of course it sounds hilarious. Sounds hyperbolic. The name, the Great Molasses Flood sounds hilarious. It sounds like it would be whimsical and smell like gingerbread. It sounds like something that would happen on fucking Phineas and Ferb. It does. It just sounds silly. Yeah. It wasn't. It was very, very, very brutal. It really was. People lost people that they loved. And in horrible ways. Yeah.

The other members of the Clowardy family made it out of their house, but it would be several hours before they learned the fate of their mother. Oh. Yeah. The wave of molasses struck the area hard, but an equally serious problem was getting into the area to help those that were affected by all of this. People are just trapped because it's also just like, doesn't it harden after a while too? Yeah, it gets like crusty and shit. Yeah.

Our guy, Frankie McManus, he was working his usual beat. You know Frankie's beat. Of course I know Frankie's beat. His beat's in the North End. Yeah. And he was working there when the tank collapsed. And he was the first to report the disaster. He made the report from an emergency call box 1234. McManus reported an explosion on the wharf and requested fire crews to be sent to the scene immediately. Roughly 15 minutes later, McManus placed a second call. They were told to call the fire department.

Wow. Oh, no.

It would turn out that this was just the beginning of a very much larger death toll. In a matter of just five minutes, the entire, five minutes, the entire North End waterfront had been destroyed. So much properly demolished and so much lives lost. Like, it's so tragic. Now, that evening, after everything had kind of settled, a relief station for those directly affected by the disaster was set up in Haymarket Square. Mm-hmm.

Rather than waste time taking the injured across town to those ambulances, ambulances and other vehicles were brought, brought the injured to Haymarket where, you know, they could just try to set up like some kind of field hospital essentially. Basically, and how they described it was struggling men covered from head to foot, eyes and ears and mouth with black molasses. They received treatment there for various injuries.

In at least three cases, the victims were so heavily coated in molasses that it took some time in cleaning before emergency providers realized they were already dead. Oh, because they were just so heavily coated. Now, further complicating matters was the large crowd that had gathered at the relief station in the hours after the tank collapsed.

As soon as the news of the disaster started making its way around the city, concerned residents, many with friends and loved ones who worked on the wharf, showed up at Haymarket looking for confirmation that they were safe. One report said some of these remained throughout the afternoon waiting for definite news.

And long into the night, these relatives continued to come into the station for information. Oh, that's so sad to think that people went that long without knowing what happened. Yeah. Now, this is really sad, this next one. Among those who were seeking horrific answers was the family of Maria and Antonio D'Estasio, two North End kids who had been out on the wharf on their school lunch break to collect firewood for their father. Oh, my God.

Just before the tank collapsed, Antonio was crouched behind the tank, watching as his sister was reprimanded by two railroad workers for playing near the docks. The last thing Antonio remembered was seeing the horrified looks on the men's faces as from behind Maria d'Eustacio, they watched the support beams under the molasses tank buckle. Antonio recalled seeing something large moving out of the corner of his eye and then everything went black.

Now, the children's parents learned that Antonio had been at the relief station, but had since been taken to City Hospital for treatment. No one at the relief station had seen or heard from Maria. Later, they would learn the horrific fate of their daughter. When the tank broke open, Maria had been standing directly in the path of the giant wave and was engulfed immediately.

She was 10 years old. Oh, my God. 10 years old, and she was immediately asphyxiated by the molasses. The only thing that you can say there is at least it was immediate. Thank goodness, but my goodness. Like, you hope that she didn't suffer at all. I just can't even. 10 years old. And what's even sadder, a few hours later, a firefighter spotted Maria's, quote, tangled hair swirling in a sea of dark molasses, and he pulled her from the liquid. Oh.

it was immediately apparent that they could not save her. Antonio, on the other hand, was the least bit more fortunate. His injuries were severe. He had a fractured skull and a concussion. But a firefighter managed to grab him and pull him out of the molasses before he was completely consumed by it.

So like, thank goodness for those firefighters. Seriously, straight up heroes. Yeah. Police and fire officials arrived to the scene quickly following the call from Officer McManus. And having heard reports of an explosion, were immediately confused by like a lack of fire. Right. But they immediately began combing the neighborhood, looking for survivors, pulling people from, you know, the molasses, from ruins of houses, businesses, warehouses, anywhere. They were just trying to find anyone that survived this.

Meanwhile, the fire department began blasting the streets with water, hoping to wash the molasses into the drains. But the sheer quantity of this sugary, thick syrup. You're not just going to wash it away. Yeah, it just wasn't working. They got a little bit, but it's like it's going to be tedious and it's going to take a lot of time. Right. While emergency responders worked to pull people to safety and removed all the dangerous debris from the streets, medical workers soon arrived at the scene to provide emergency treatment.

Parker Hill Hospital, for example, sent a full surgical staff and more than 80 medical privates and 10 ambulances to provide first aid. Wow. In another place near the North End, the nurses from the Metropolitan Chapter of the Red Cross wasted no time wading into knee-deep molasses to reach injured survivors. They just fucking in they went. Yeah.

and they would carry them out on stretchers to the relief center or nearby hospitals for treatment. Led by Mrs. Carlisle Emery, within a half hour of the collapse, Emery's team of Red Cross volunteers had mobilized more than a dozen ambulances. And those who weren't involved in the transport or treatment of injured people still stayed at the scene to provide information and just comfort victims. Or to serve coffee and meals to firefighters and police officials. Community came together in a big way. Hell yeah.

Um, these, those working in the areas nearest to the tank were obviously likely the most in danger, both during and after the collapse. And after the initial wave of the molasses had moved inward from the docks, the men working in the freight houses of the Bay State Street Railway Company, they, uh,

They had been hit really hard. The flood had hit the buildings even harder. They had knocked down the walls. They buried several workers under the debris. I mean, it was like the closer you got in, the worse this became. Those who weren't pinned down by debris were stranded. They just couldn't get out. I mean, there's like a whole river of molasses. You can't go swimming in it. And they could really do little to help their more seriously hurt coworkers. So they were just kind of stranded and helpless. Right.

According to H.P. Palmer, who was an accountant with Bay State, tides of molasses were rushing in all directions and people who heard the cries of the injured and dying were prevented from going to their aid by the molasses.

Ultimately, Axemen would spend hours cutting away debris to reach the injured. Just to think that there was tides. Tides of molasses. Tides of molasses going everywhere. And they're hearing screams of people dying and injured and like they can't help anybody. They're just all straight. You're like being stranded in like the middle of the sea surrounded by sharks. Yeah. You just can't do anything. Yeah. Although the wave of molasses had subsided at this point,

and rescuers had come to the scene, many people were still in danger of being discovered too late by survivors, by workers, rescue workers. The firemen of Engine 31, for example, were trapped inside the station when the wave hit. It knocked the building in on itself and trapped the firemen inside.

Oh, yeah. While several were able to pull themselves out of the rubble, several others remained pinned down by debris with the tide of molasses slowly rising around them. Oh, my God. That's fucking. Yeah, that's horrific. You can't. Oh, my God. The building had collapsed in such a way and at such an angle that the molasses was able to just flow in. You couldn't even write that. No movie.

It's crazy. So the molasses can flow into this building that's collapsed on itself. But the only means of it flowing out was a small hole in the side of the building. And as a result, the men inside face the very real possibility of just drowning in molasses, being smothered.

Which is what would happen. Unreal. As one of the few who had freed himself, firefighter Bill Connor worked tirelessly to keep the others calm as the sticky molasses is just crawling over every inch of their bodies and threatening to kill them. And he's staying there trying to calm his coworkers and trying to help. At the relief center...

Suffolk County medical examiner Dr. George McGrath worked slowly and methodically to provide whatever support he could. Later, he would describe the injured bodies saying, quote, they looked as though they were covered in heavy oil skins. Their faces, of course, were covered with molasses, eyes and ears, mouths and nose filled with it.

Oh my God, that's so awful. When they say smother, they mean you smother. McGrath and the other medical providers spent much of their time just washing the injured with sodium bicarbonate and hot water, eventually revealing their identity and the extent of their injuries. Because people would come in and they wouldn't even know what they were injured with because they couldn't see it. Because they're coated. Yeah.

The extent of the damage caused by the collapse of the molasses vat was far-reaching and honestly difficult to articulate at this point. The collapse of many buildings and the destabilization of the wharf was a very real danger to everyone on the scene. Everything was destabilized. You didn't know if you were standing on something that was going to collapse. But...

That was really only one piece of the whole devastation. Larger pieces of infrastructure, like the girders of the elevated train line, had also collapsed, serving as an impediment to the cleanup efforts. In the days that followed, huge teams of men worked slowly carrying debris away or pulling the larger pieces away with trucks, but it was slow going. Right.

Once the debris had been moved, a second team came in behind the first to just look for more injured survivors. In some cases, rescuers arrived just in time to prevent somebody from being overtaken by the molasses. Like literally their head and face barely in the surface and they would just get to them in time.

And this would be like days of somebody sitting in molasses. Oh my god. Waiting to be either smothered to death or rescued. And just sitting there and being cognizant of that the entire time. That this could be it. In the days after the flood, the men working to clear the area would continue to find bodies among the wreckage as well. By the 18th, the death toll had risen to 13, as those who were the most injured in the flood succumbed to their injuries as well.

A day later, two more bodies were discovered among the wreckage, and they said they were so battered and glazed over by the molasses that identification was difficult. Oh, that's awful. Among the last to be discovered was 17-year-old Eric Laird, who was a teamster from Charlestown who was working on the docks when the tank collapsed.

Laird had been working in one of the freight houses when the flood hit, and his body was wedged so tightly under the front axle of a car that workers had to, quote, jack up the truck and saw pieces of the wreckage before they could retrieve the body. Jesus Christ. Yeah. 17 years old. It's...

Really sad. Now, ultimately, it would take nearly a week, a full week to clear away most of the large debris with men working around the clock spraying down the neighborhood with jets of water from fire trucks and nearly every hydrant in the North End was being used. I mean, it was just like...

The molasses had covered several blocks of the city in depths of two to three feet. So once the syrup had been washed away, large teams of men would follow behind scrubbing every surface with stiff bristle brushes to try to get it all because it's just sticky shit now. Yeah.

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By the time everything had been cleared away, the flood was determined to have caused millions of dollars in property and infrastructure damage. Oh, I can imagine. Injured more than 150 people and killed the following 21 people. 21 people. Patrick Breen, William Brogan, Bridget Clowerty, Stephen Clowerty, John Callahan, Maria D'Estasio, William Duffy, Peter Francis,

Flaminio Gallerani, Pasquale Lentosca, Michael Sinnott, James Kennedy, Eric Laird, George Leahy, James Lennon, Ralph Martin, James McMullen, Cesar Niccolo, Thomas Noonan, Peter Shaughnessy, and John Sieberlich. That's so sad. We have, I mean, from...

We have people in their 60s. We have a 10-year-old. We have a 17-year-old. We have some 20-year-olds. We have two 10-year-olds. Pascual Lentosca is also a 10-year-old. Peter Shaughnessy is 18 years old. Peter Sinnott is 78 years old. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's just devastating. It is. It's tragic. Now, once the initial shock and trauma of the event had subsided and they could survey the damage...

What everyone wanted to know was how the fuck did this happen? What happened? Like...

It sounds like it was just built too quickly. And they didn't know that. So everybody's like, what the fuck happened? Did an explosion happen? Just looking back now. Yeah. When he visited the disaster zone in the North End the day the tank collapsed, Mayor Andrew Peters told the press, quote, Boston is appalled at the terrible accident that occurred today in the North End. On behalf of her citizens, I extend to the families of those who were injured and of those who lost their lives our most heartfelt sympathy.

Yeah. Now, Peter's statement was exactly what one would have expected from a politician in the wake of a tragedy. Absolutely. But it turned out that determining the cause of the collapse and identifying a responsible party was going to be a little more challenging than anyone had anticipated. Yeah.

By the following day, the Massachusetts District Police's explosive expert, Walter Wedger, stated he was, quote, Okay. According to Wedger, quote, Right.

I guess that makes sense. While the Boston police conducted their investigation, the USIA announced they would be conducting their own investigation under the direction of Arthur Gell and led by professors Arthur Gill and Arthur Miller. So many Arthurs. I love that it's just a committee of Arthurs. Yeah, just Arthurs. And they were professors of Harvard and MIT, respectively. I mean, I believe them. Yeah. Yeah.

So a representative from USIA told the press, we feel sure there was no explosion. And if there was, it was caused by some outside force and not from within the tank. Well, it could have been within the tank because the tank is so pressurized. Exactly. That's the thing. I don't think there has to be an outside explosion. No. No.

No. In the weeks after that, the USIA's investigation focused on their theory that, quote, an anarchist climbed a ladder and dropped a pipe bomb into the fermentation vent. And that's what caused the tank to explode. That's quite the leap. Just an anarchist. Like, what kind of anarchist gets that? I don't think most people would say, you know what I'm going to do today? I think I'm going to explode the molasses tank down the street. Yeah, it's strange. Like, I don't know how that would occur to you.

It's a strange message. It is. What exactly are you trying to say? Now the thing is, as we can make, we can be like, that's silly business, but it wasn't totally out of the realm of possibility. Okay. Cause in the early decades of the 20th century, anarchists around the United States did use bombings or the threat of bombings to take a stand against anti-immigration politicians and corporations they believed were exploiting workers. So like,

It's silly to like think about like somebody climbing a molasses tank and throwing a pipe bomb, but you can see why they at least threw the theory out there. Yeah. Because also they just don't understand how this is all working. When you got to start somewhere. Exactly. Um,

So USIA attorney Henry Dolan said, we know beyond question that the tank was not weak. And you have to remember, they're saving their own ass. Yeah, because that's a whole ass lie. They can't say maybe it just broke and burst. They have to blame it on something like an anarchist claiming the thing. He said, we know that an examination was made of the outside of the base of the structure a few minutes before its collapse. And he insisted that whatever happened, it was not the company's fault.

Despite USIA's certainty that they were not to blame, District Attorney Joseph Pelletier took the case to the grand jury seeking an indictment against USIA for 19 counts of manslaughter, clearly believing they were to blame for the disaster. I kind of get it. On February 13th, the grand jury reviewed the case and found that while the tank did not completely comply with the law fixing a minimum factor of safety, there was insufficient evidence to justify the indictment.

Yeah. Okay. Simply put, the court and the state's investigators rejected USIA's bomb theory and believed that shoddy craftsmanship was at least partially to blame for the tank collapse, but that there wasn't enough evidence to prove it. So they said, no, we don't think somebody threw a bomb into the thing. We do think there was some structural issues, but we don't think there was enough evidence.

I would feel, I feel like the entire molasses flood should be enough evidence to prove that some of those, some of those faulty bits there had, like that, that's all you really need. Well, and in the months, then years that followed, the courts would rule against the company in civil cases, ordering them to pay millions in damages. Yeah, so they basically said, yeah.

The biggest problem investigators had when it came to identifying the party or parties responsible for the collapse was that it was impossible to say with certainty what had caused the tank to explode. In fact, to this day, it's still pretty unclear what precisely happened to unleash that giant of an explosion, though there were several plausible theories.

The most prominent and most likely scenario, and the one that investigators had considered in their early investigation, is that the dramatic increase in warm weather triggered the fermentation process, causing a buildup of carbon dioxide inside the small headspace of the tank. And if the tank had been properly constructed and held to high standards of safety, it likely could have withstood that buildup of gases. Right.

But in Gell's race to beat Prohibition, he had allowed the tank to build pretty quickly and kind of poorly. And under the circumstances, the tank walls were unable to withstand that pressure build. And when it became too much, the entire structure just exploded. I mean, that's what pressure does. That makes the most sense. Think about a pressure cooker. There's two machines.

million two million right 2.3 million 2.3 million gallons gallons of fucking molasses in there so it's not like it just exploded and like some molasses oozed out no it makes sense that that much chaos exactly that that much like tragedy fell because molasses is also a thick viscous liquid yeah if it's exploding it's taken out everything yeah thick it's got some mass behind it it's not like this is just

with nothing behind it. It's not like a water tank. Yeah. And even that would cause damage. And you look at how thick molasses is in comparison to water. Yeah. Of course. And heavy. Exactly. And just think of a pressure cooker. Yeah, exactly. How much damage those can do. That's the best way to think of it.

That's essentially what it was. It was a presser cooker. I was just going to say. Now, when considering the entire scenario, author Stephen Paleo wrote his good name. His good name. Author Stephen with his good name. I don't want to mess up his good name. No. He wrote, the substance itself gives the entire event an unusual whimsical quality. Yes. Allowing for it to easily fall into the category of folklore that's, you know, like half

told half seriously year to year. In fact, one of the more lighthearted facts of the story is that for decades after the flood, the North End still smelled of molasses on warm days. And people will say even now, they'll be like, oh, even now on warm days, you can just smell molasses. And it's like, like what? Also, you can't. But imagine how triggering that was for people who had lost a loved one or like themselves been injured. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the thing. And it's like, so that was always like the thing that was like a funny thing. Like, oh, on warm days, you can still smell the molasses so much it leaked into the landscape. But like the reality of the flood was anything but humorous or whimsical. It just wasn't. Because of its chemical makeup, molasses, like we said, is real thick, real goopy and

And given the right amount of stress and pressure, it can pick up momentum very quickly and move at insane speeds. 35 miles an hour? Like you drive in your car at that fucking speed. Ferris Jaber wrote in Scientific American, because of this physical property, a wave of molasses is even more devastating than a typical tsunami. Wow. Yeah. Nice.

Wow. Yep. Like we said, moving at speeds 35, like nearly 35 miles per hour, the flood grabbed everything in its path because it was also sticky. It could grab onto things. And it would toss it into the air or crush it under the immense weight of the liquid itself.

And once it's settled, the liquid returned to a more gelatinous state, which would trap people, animals, and property in like an iron vice grip. Even more terrifying is the fact that because of its viscosity, it's almost impossible to move, much less swim in molasses. So if you found yourself dragged under the wave, you would have died a terrible death because you couldn't move. You were just being eaten by it, essentially. Yeah.

It is only due to the incline of Copse Hill that the flood slowed down at all. Like, thank goodness there was an incline. Because if the landscape had been a downhill slope, the death toll would have been considerably higher. It would have taken out hundreds of people. Despite the horror of this whole thing, there was some good that came out of it. At the time of the flood, Americans were pretty accustomed to courts ruling in favor of corporate interests over those of the people. Yeah.

And as such, most people likely assumed no one would be held accountable for the disaster, even though the evidence was strongly suggesting lax safety protocols and sloppy work.

But to everyone's great surprise, Bostonians soon learned that sometimes the courts will do the right thing. All right. In the years-long civil suits that followed, Judge High Ogden repeatedly ruled in favor of victims over the USIA. Oh, yeah. Frequently awarding more to those victims whose suffering had been substantial, too. Ogden basically awarded $6,000 or nearly $600,000 today.

To people who were killed immediately, like 10-year-old Maria D'Asasio, because she was killed instantly. So he would award that to her family. Right.

They deserved it. And according to my good man, Stephen. Good man. Good name. He said then he gave $7,500 to people who suffered before they died. Like George Leahy. He was trapped in the basement of a firehouse in this little 18-inch crawl space and tried to keep his head above molasses for four hours before he was asphyxiated. Oh, my God. What a horrific way to die. Horrific.

Horrific. You can't put a price on that. Oh, no. You can't.

But the disaster also had a significant influence on the realm of public safety, both in Massachusetts and around the country. Following the flood, new regulations were put in place that, you know, it did a lot, but it would also require architects and engineers to show their work and get their plans signed off on by building inspectors and safety regulators. That's crazy that that wasn't already a thing that was happening. No. My good man, Stephen.

said the Great Boston Molasses Flood did for building construction standards what the Coconut Grove Fire did for fire standards. It's so wild because the entire time we've been talking about the Molasses Flood, I've been thinking about the Coconut Grove. Because that was also a devastating event that changed the history of Boston. Of course, yeah. Now, all of those who experienced the Molasses Flood firsthand have since died. And these days, the story...

Kind of rarely comes up in discussion of Boston's history. It really doesn't. But thanks to my good man, Stephen Paleo, and local journalists, those who lost their lives in the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 remain remembered today, thankfully, because they won't let them forget. No, that's an important story to tell.

And it's Stephen Puello, I think it is. Puello, I believe it is. I think that's what you had said. Yeah, I think I said it wrong. I apologize if I said it wrong. My good man, Stephen. Wow. We're linking all his sources in the show notes, so you can definitely go take a look at what he has to say. Go support the good man. My good man, Stephen, with his good name. Wow. That is a tragic fucking tale. It's a very tragic tale. And it really is. Interesting, though.

wild that they don't... There should be, in Massachusetts at the very least, it should be a whole section in history. I mean, think of how much time, which again, we should. We spend on the Salem Witch Trials because we're in the area and I never ever learned about this. Teach people about this because it's also a good lesson in how doing things quickly and cutting corners can lead to absolute catastrophe. Yeah, disastrous events. Wow. So that...

is the tale of the great molasses flood in boston well thank you so much for that as tragic as it was it was definitely fascinating tale yeah you can read up more about it yeah a little deviation from like murder which is always nice yeah it's just it's a different kind of tragedy yeah one that is interesting and needs to be talked about more yeah because those people need to be remembered yeah for sure but as always we hope you continue no what we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it

You know how weird to keep it. Yeah, just don't cut corners. No. Don't half, whole ass everything. Don't half ass things. Yeah.

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