The Great Boston Molasses Flood: When 2.3 Million Gallons Hit Boston

On January 15, 1919, a giant storage tank burst in Boston’s North End, unleashing more than two million gallons of molasses into the streets. It sounds ridiculous—until you realize 21 people died.

A Very Strange Disaster

Boston’s North End was busy on January 15, 1919, when residents heard something coming from a massive molasses storage tank on Commercial Street.
Then the tank failed.

Approximately 2.3 million gallons of molasses surged into the surrounding neighborhood. Contemporary accounts described an enormous wave powerful enough to damage buildings, twist sections of elevated railway structure, sweep away vehicles, and trap people in its path. Twenty-one people were killed and roughly 150 were injured.

The Tank Had Problems

The tank belonged to United States Industrial Alcohol and had been constructed only a few years earlier.
But residents were already familiar with something strange about it: it leaked.

Children reportedly collected leaking molasses from around the tank, while the structure itself had a history of concerning noises and problems.
On January 15, those warning signs became catastrophic.

A Neighborhood Drowned in Molasses

Molasses doesn’t sound particularly threatening when it’s sitting in a kitchen cabinet.
Millions of gallons moving through a crowded neighborhood is something else entirely.

People, horses and debris became trapped in the thick liquid as rescuers struggled through an environment unlike almost anything they had encountered before.

Cleanup took an enormous effort.
And the disaster eventually led to years of litigation over responsibility for the tank’s failure.

The Great Boston Molasses Flood sounds like the setup to a joke.
For the people caught in it, it was anything but.

History can be ugly.
But this? This was ridiculous.

Sources & References

• Mass.gov — Great Boston Molasses Flood reference
• History — Great Molasses Flood
• Boston Historical Society — Molasses Flood site