Anyone who’s ever had to work with molasses, and having spilled a few drops here and there, has probably wondered what this stuff could do in massive quantities. If it spilled all over the floor, how long would it take to clean up? But what about on a larger scale? What if millions of gallons were spilled? How long would that take?
The answer is 6 months, at least that’s what it took in 1919 in Boston . It’s got to be one of the most bizarre disasters ever recorded, and it certainly was a disaster. It injured 150 people, and killed 21, and there’s never been anything quite like it.
In the middle of January, a tank that held over 2 million gallons of molasses exploded, and like something out of a horror movie, it filled the streets. It measured a few feet high, and moved at about 25-30 miles and hour, making it impossible to escape from. Horses and people were literally stuck in their tracks, and buildings were demolished, leaving a mess that took half a year to correct.
At that time, molasses was the main sweetener people used, and it was also the main ingredient in making rum. The relation between molasses and rum becomes obvious when one considers that it is fermented sugar cane, and that’s what the sticky stuff is, in essence. The history of molasses and sugar cane are completely connected to the slave trade, and the colonization of the Caribbean Islands, so there’s more to explore in the disaster than meets the eye.
But the accounts have it that the reasons for the tragedy came from either a sudden shift in temperature, that caused the molasses to expand, or from overfilling the tank because of the coming Prohibition. Either way, there’s more to explore, and on a hot summer weekend while staying in a Boston hotel , it might be possible to walk near the site of the disaster and smell remnants of molasses from nearly a century ago.
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