And it wasn’t just the sugary tidal wave that was so deadly the tank was ripped into sharp projectiles and shot metal bolts from its sides like bullets. Great Boston Molasses Flood Plaque via Boston Public Library There is no shortage of forgotten disasters, but few rival the 1919 Great Boston Molasses Disaster in the scope of its. Molasses spread across the city at an estimated 35 miles per hour. This tank was a five-story-tall metal cylinder, 90 feet in diameter and filled to capacity. When it burst, a two-story-tall wave containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses issued forth, traveling out in all directions like a shockwave. 529 Commercial Street, Boston, MA, United States, 02109 The 43 mile long Harborwalk of Boston holds a humble sign for one of the strangest man-made disasters in world history.

In a desperate race to turn this sweet sticky stuff into booze before Prohibition hit in January 1920, the company had filled its largest holding tank with as much molasses as it could get its hands on. A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated. Great Molasses Flood of 1919 - Plaque A hideous food disaster - a 40-foot-high tidal wave of sticky brown molasses from a collapsed storage tank - that deserves a much more sensational monument. Rather than using the sticky substance for dessert-friendly syrup, the company had taken to fermenting it to make booze and bombs. On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank at 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. b North End, Boston, M Skinny House, Hull S Piccolo cimitero Copps Hill Cemetery. In January 1919, the Purity Distilling Company, located at 529 Commercial Street, was in the molasses business-in a nefarious way. Boston Molasses Flood Plaque Copps Hill Cemetery looking to the. Before residents had time to register what was happening, the recently refilled molasses tank ripped wide.

The stone-walled structure was once used for gun powder storage in anticipation of. At around 12:40 p.m., the mid-afternoon calm was broken by the sound of a metallic roar. In Boston’s industrial North End is a small, easy to miss plaque memorializing a very strange moment in Boston’s history: the Great Boston Molasses Flood, in which a sugary tidal wave wreaked deadly destruction on the city. In one of Bostons more unusual disasters, 21 people were killed in a molasses flood in the citys North End in 1919. Located just outside Boston, the Old Powder House is the oldest stone building in the state of Massachusetts.

Great boston molasses flood plaque