Take, for example, the train conductor Royal Albert Leeman: “There’s the elevated passenger line that ran right above commercial street, and when a big piece of the tank severs the main support, a train had just gone by and jumped the tracks. “I don’t think that call will happen again,” Puleo says. “Send all available rescue vehicles and personnel immediately! There’s a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street!” That was the once-in-a-lifetime message the Boston Police received from Patrolman Frank McManus, who witnessed the tank erupting. Kind of an eerie scene.” It led to an incredible phone call It’s kind of quiet on the waterfront at night except for the reverberation of gunshots around the harbor as these horses are being put out of their misery. “There are horses in a stable nearby, and half of them were killed instantly upon impact but the other half, 10 or 11 horses, are killed that night-shot by Boston Police-because they are so enmeshed in molasses they can never be extricated. In fact the last person is found I believe three or four months after, under a pier.” It was a bad day for horses “They were knocked into the water by the wave. It’s just a very harrowing kind of disaster.” Some of the dead were found in Boston Harbor People are kind of hit by this debris as it’s being swept by the wave. “That’s how a lot of these injuries happened-fractured skulls, broken pelvises, broken backs. “It picks up everything in its path-carts, animals, wood, houses, debris from an overhead train trestle,” he says. “The theory was an anarchist climbed a ladder and dropped a pipe bomb into a fermentation vent, and that’s what caused the tank to explode, so therefore should be absolved of responsibility because it was a terrorist act,” Puleo says.īoston Herald news clip via Boston Public Library The molasses was full of deadly junk claimed in court that the flood was actually the work of an anarchist terrorist cell. But the company that owned the tank, U.S. We now know in great detail how a shoddily built tank caused the disaster, as more than 2 million gallons of goo burst through its rickety steel shell and wreaked havoc on the streets of the North End. The molasses company tried to blame the incident on terrorists We asked him to walk us through some of the most notable bits from the tragedy that you should absolutely know. The 100th anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses flood is upon us, but many still fail to grasp the significance of the event, if they’ve heard of it at all. Stephen Puleo, author of the definitive book on the subject, Dark Tide, has spent the last decade-and-a-half telling the story how a massive wave of dark syrup changed the course of history, redefined a neighborhood, and was more gruesome than you probably realized. The lack of electrical equipment available at the time made cleanup difficult, and it took days before officials were able to assess the full extent of the damage and determine the death toll.Headshot and book cover courtesy of Beacon Press The elevated railroad along Commercial Street collapsed and an alert conductor prevented an inbound train from plunging into the abyss of sugar and syrup. Copp’s Hill, which is located on the far side of Commercial Street, created a natural barrier that helped contain the disaster to the waterfront neighborhood. Houses made of wood along Commercial street were reduced to kindling, while brick buildings sustained significant damage. Firemen were crushed and killed under the weight of the fire station, which was flattened within seconds by the rush of goop. Food, pigs, and barrels of beer were swept up in the wave of molasses that crashed through the streets and hardened into a solid mass by nightfall. The molasses flood leveled homes, shipping docks, warehouses, and Engine 31 of Boston’s Fire Department.
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