The Straight Dope: "Was Boston once literally flooded with molasses?"Īlthough the neighborhood in which the tank was constructed was one of the most densely-populated in Boston, the population was almost exclusively poor Italian immigrants who had maintained a close-knit community that largely eschewed involvement in the larger affairs of Boston and the North End. When an alarmed employee complained, Jell's response was to have the tank painted brown so the leaks wouldn't be so noticeable. Once molasses was pumped in, the tank leaked so copiously at the seams that neighborhood kids collected the drippings in cans. Anxious to complete the tank in time for the arrival of the first molasses shipment, Jell forwent the elementary precaution of filling it first with water to test for leaks. Designed by its supplier, the Hammond Iron Works, and built to meet the exploding demand created by the war that had started in 1914, it had faced first delays and then was rushed through its construction, workers at the end laboring around-the-clock to meet a Decemdeadline when a ship from Cuba bearing 700,000 gallons of molasses, already under steam, was due to arrive.Ĭonstruction of the tank had been overseen, or more accurately gazed stupidly at, by Arthur Jell, a bean counter with no technical background who was unable even to read blueprints. As massively big structures go, it "fell through the cracks" - it was neither a building, nor a bridge, nor any of the other structures that required the approval of, and the filing of engineering blueprints with the Boston building department. There had been warning signs from the very beginning about the 90-foot-diameter, 52-foot-tall tank that allegedly creaked and groaned under load. At noon on the 15th people in the crowded North End neighborhood near the tank had sat down to eat their lunches when they heard a low, deep rumble. and by January 15th the temperatures hit 43 degrees and workers in the vicinity were doffing coats and working in shirtsleeves. Then, over the ensuing days, Boston experienced a mid-January warming spell. At the time, the temperatures hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Smithsonian Magazine: "Without warning, molasses in January surged over Boston"Ī ship bearing molasses from another United States Industrial Alcohol subsidiary in Jamaica had arrived just a few days before and its contents had brought the tank to near capacity. In 1919, Boston's Purity tank could hold about two and a half million gallons of the stuff. The old triangle had long been broken by 1919, but New England still made (and makes) rum, as well as baked beans, and the molasses for both still came (and comes) north from the Caribbean and New Orleans. It was built to hold molasses, that old Colonial commodity that stirs school-day memories of the "triangle trade": slaves from Africa to the West Indies molasses from the West Indies to New England rum, made from the molasses, back across the Atlantic for a cargo of slaves. It had been built four years before by the Purity Distilling Company-massively constructed, with great curved steel sides and strong bottom plates set into a concrete base and pinned together with a stitching of rivets. On the water side of Commercial Street, opposite Copp's Hill, there stood in 1919 a giant storage tank. The Purity Distilling Company molasses tank towers over the building in the foreground. Now, with the war just over, countries re-building their arms stockpiles in the wake of the armistice had somewhat supplanted wartime demand, and despite an uncertain future for the industry, compounded by the threatened passage of the 18th amendment, life was good. Its alcohol had been in demand throughout World War I for the manufacture of munitions, bringing it war-profiteer-level cash flows. By early 1919 the United States Industrial Alcohol Company, and its subsidiary, the Purity Distilling Company in Boston, had had a pretty good run.
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