The Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919

In 1914, the demand for molasses was at an all time high. As a result, Purity Distilling Company installed a holding tank fifty feet tall and ninety feet across at 529 Commercial Street near Keany Square in Boston. On an unseasonably warm day, January 15, 1919, the tank collapsed. The History Guy remembers the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

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Script by DDC

#ushistory #thehistoryguy #Bostonmolassesdisaster

[curtisstewart]

I work on these above ground storage tanks. In fact, I am in the process of upgrading a original 1920 Chicago Bridge and Iron 117'-6" diameter tank for crude oil storage. It was moved to its present location in 1942 for oil storage in Gaines County Texas. By the next inspection/repair cycle this tank will be 110 years old. Pretty good for a riveted tank.

The Boston disaster is believed to have been caused by overfilling with material heaver than the designed liquid. The tank could have safely sustained a load of liquid with a specific gravity of 1.0(water). Instead the specific gravity of liquid molasses of 1.4. That is 40% more than the tank was designed to hold. The operator had regularly overfilled the tank probably increasing the cause of failure. The rivet holes were cold punched which was the process of the day. This resulted in cold working of the edge. Due to rudimentary quality control when the steel plate was made it has always been suspected the point of failure was caused by an anomaly in the steel plate at the rivet hole and brittle fracture of the cold worked plate. The temperature changes and time if year points toward this. The failure in January 2, 1988 in Pennsylvania spilling 1 million gallons of diesel into the Monongahela shed light on this tanks suspected failure. The closed vent is now believed to be only a secondary contributor to the failure.

These riveted tanks were built with a safety factor of 5 where mass and thickness were substituted for engineering knowledge. Today we have the luxury of poo pooing what happened then. But the definitive book on Above Ground Storage Tanks was not written until 1997. American Petroleum Society 12C and 650 were not published until after WW2 and the first riveted standard was published in 1936.

Even today there is no such thing as a Above Ground Storage Tank engineer. Most come from mechanical or civil engineering disciplines.

A truly fascinating but obscure subject in my field of endeavor.

[manthony]

Over forty years ago I worked for a company that retailed Muskin and Doughboy above ground pools. And you always had people who just wanted to put them up in their backyards as quick as possible. When we put them up for customers, we always leveled the area, and provided a sand base under the liner. People always complained about the costs, and "that sand is killing my lawn.' "It's only water." Well, each gallon of water is 8.34 pounds, and your 30 ft diameter pool holds about 19, 000 gallons. It's not neurosurgery to figure out that's a lots of force. Every cubic yard weighs about what the original Volkswagen Beetle did, so, when you see that water coming toward your home because you put your pool up incorrectly, imagine a VW Beetle coming towards your sliding glass doors at 35 mph...

[dougcapehart]

As soon as he said the "construction to be overseen by Arthur P Jell, their financial advisor, " I knew 90% of the story.

[davidurban]

As a Civil engineer we learn about this case every so often in our Engineering Ethics seminars.

[majorlee]

Thanks, I asked for this one. I can remember as a kid my father telling me this. Ah the days of old Boston!.

[Soundwave]

This event is very close to home for my family: my Great Grandfather was nearly a victim of the spill, had he not swapped shifts. The man he swapped with was killed.

[LMacNeill]

There was a TV show called "Engineering Disasters" on the History Channel -- you know, back when the History Channel actually covered *HISTORY, * and wasn't just another high-numbered cable channel with "reality" crap being broadcast 24/7. Anyway, on that show, *many* years ago now, they featured an episode about this disaster. So surprising how many things have to go wrong at the same time for a disaster like this to happen. Thanks for reminding us of this important historical event, History Guy!

[bo_]

i have important stuff to do, but a "Molasses Disaster" story must come first.

[garryturgiss]

Thanks for remembering that. My grandmother told me about it when I was little. She was from the area and remembered when it happened

[everythingstemporary]

The tank is leaking!
That's OK, we'll paint it brown.

[KansaiSamurai]

The molasses moved down the street at 35mph. Now we know how fast molasses is in January!

[pitsnipe]

I remember reading about this in Reader’s Digest while in Jr. High School in the mid sixties. The story said that when the weather us just right you can still smell the molasses in The North End.

[GaldirEonai]

On a related note: There was also a great _beer_ flood in London a hundred years prior. A brewery's tanks burst, with 8 people killed (mostly from being crushed by the debris the tidal wave of booze was pushing in front of it).

[Hiatus]

Most sticky uncomfortable for OCD. Geeze, it's got to be worst, feeling most annoyed, longest sticky feeling that won't go away

[valeriehyman]

My grandfather owned a laundry business and was making deliveries and on that day his horse refused to go any further on their delivery route and returned to his stable. My mother was told this story by her father and it is in our family history book that my niece put together in 2008.

[seanshea]

My favorite little factoid from the reports of this event is that the Molasses Flood made everything around it sticky. But humans tracked the stickiness everywhere. Due to trains, Sticky foot prints were reported as far inland as Worcester MA 45 miles inland.

[sodoffbaldrick]

My grandmother was a young nurse in Boston, and had very recently been through the Influenza pandemic in the city, and then this. She had been a little girl in San Francisco's 1906 earthquake, and she said though on a much smaller scale, this reminded her in many ways of that horror. She made fabulous molasses cookies when I was a child, but I remember her always talking about this when she poured the molasses.

[vilstef]

I've heard numerous accounts of this disaster, and it has to be one of the strangest human caused disasters anywhere or any time!

[blondbowler]

I never would have known about this without you. Thank you.

[wwar]

I read about this about 5 years ago. I love telling people about it, so many find it hard to believe.
definitely needs to be remembered 🤘