Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #45: The Great Molasses Flood

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

On January 15th, 1919, a massive molasses tank in Boston’s North End burst, unleashing a 25-foot wall of sticky destruction that toppled buildings, derailed trains, and killed 21 people while injuring scores more. Today, we follow the harrowing rescues, the landmark class-action showdown, and the reforms that changed U.S. engineering standards. A strange, darkly ironic tragedy—equal parts true-crime, industrial history... and sugary nightmare.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, a small plaque in the north end of Boston marks the sight of a horrific event. There are many such plaques across United States, plaques commemorating floods and fires, riots, and hangings, shootouts, murders, even disappearances. But there's no plaque quite like the one in the north end anywhere else in the country, because there is no other historical event in U.S. history quite like what happened. At midday on January 15, 1919, a Wednesday, Boston's north end was. full of both workers and residents venturing outdoors to enjoy some unseasonably warm weather. At about one o'clock, they all heard a low rumble. Many of them assumed it was a train. There were a bunch in the neighborhood.

There was also a stopping point nearby for steamships with goods bound for U.S. industrial alcohol. The rumbling sound grew. The ground vibrated. Suddenly a loud crack was heard. Some metal went flying. And then everything descended into pure chaos. A four-faceted tide swept through by. Austin's north end at roughly 35 miles per hour, plucking houses from their foundations,

slamming people into walls or sucking them underneath the current. An elevated train was knocked off its tracks. Windows were smashed. Pets were lost. It was a flood. It was liquid, but it wasn't water. It was deadly, but also delicious. It was molasses. Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead. not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us. Welcome to another edition of Time Sucks Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins and today I will be sharing the story of the Boston Molasses Flood, aka the Great Melasses Flood. A few of us probably pay much attention to molasses these days. I don't know if you're a big a molasses officianto.

Most of us aren't. Maybe some of us have an affinity for southern cuisine, are trying to make brown sugar for a recipe when we don't have any. In that case, combine one tablespoon of molasses with one cup of white granulated sugar. Tadda, instant brown sugar. You're welcome. Making molasses, the process of pressing sugar cane and boiling its juice until it crystallized was developed in India as early as 500 BCE. We meet sacks. Oh, we have long loved our sugary sweets. It's believed that traders from present-day Northern Africa brought the process to Spain many centuries later, and from there, the delicious process spread across the Atlantic when Christopher Columbus brought sugar cane to the West Indies, where it soon became a massive

cash crop in one of the main drivers of the Atlantic slave trade, sadly. But our sugary sweet story starts centuries later in late December of 1915 in Boston's inner harbor. A man named Arthur P. Sweet Cheeks. I mean Arthur P. Sugar Bottom. I mean, Arthur P. Candy ass. I'll stop. Arthur P. Jell. Not quite Jello, stood shivering in his top coat amid piles of grimy snow as he watched workers assembling the massive shell of a coal-gray tank. Jell was anxious to get this tank finished. He'd been in charge of the project for more than a year, during which he engaged in months of frustrating negotiations regarding leasing the commercial street waterfront location where the

tank needed to be built. Finally, Jell and the Boston Elevated Railway Company, who owned the stretch of property where the tank was now going up, came to an agreement in September of 1915 for a lease beginning on November 1st, but it was looking like it might be too late. A molasses steamer from Cuba would arrive on New Year's Eve, December 31st, ready to pump out his tank full of 700,000 gallons of viscous molasses. Holy shit, that sugar steamer was packed with simple carbs, molasses that gels company would distill into industrial alcohol. Industrial alcohol can be produced from molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining through fermentation and distillation.

This process uses yeast to convert the sugars and molasses into ethanol, which is then purified for industrial use, such as making explosives, or it can be used to make beverages like rum as well. Having the tank up and running by the time that molasses was delivered would save Jell's career. Having it still partially constructed would ruin him. He was currently the treasurer of the purity distilling company, but Jill really wanted to get in good with its parent company, U.S. industrial alcohol. U.S.IA president Frederick M. Harrison and vice president Nelson B. Mayor, or Meyer, had been dangling a parent company vice presidency in front of him for months,

and such promotion would include relocation to headquarters in New York City and a big-ass salary boost. So when Harrison ordered Jill to begin work on the Boston Tank Project, there was more than a veiled implication that his success on this project would expedite his promotion. And failure would do the exact opposite. Now things are looking a lot closer to failure than they were to success. In response, Jill ordered the Hammond Iron Works, the manufacturers and assemblers of the tank, to employ extra crews to finish this job. 30 men now, toiled day and night on the big tank. He'd even had additional electric lighting installed and mounted so darkness would not

impede progress on this tank. They're working 24 hours a day. Come on, let's go. Now, Jell watched his workers, bent the last of the giant still plates into place and bolted them together with thousands of rivets. The full height of the tank would be 50 feet, with a diameter of 90 feet, making an overall capacity of two million gallons of molasses, or whatever they wanted to put in there. But holy shit, that's a lot of molasses cookies and candy.

This tank was to become an essential stop on molasses's journey through the U.S. coming from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the West Indies, the molasses would be dumped into the tank and then loaded onto rail cars that would take the substance to the company's manufacturing plant in East Cambridge. There, a small portion of molasses would be distilled into grain alcohol, but more than three quarters of it would be distilled into industrial alcohol that would be used as a major ingredient in the production of munitions, things like dynamite, smokeless powder, other high explosives. on the part of U.S. weapons manufacturers, as well as the British, French, and Canadian governments. With World War I waging in Europe, raging in Europe, the molasses trade accomplished two goals at once. It increased the U.S.'s advantage if it ended up entering the war, which, of course, it would in April of 1917, and it allowed them to make a shit ton of money in the process. And it truly was so much money. The demand for industrial alcohol was so great that U.S. I.A. could hardly keep up.

Everyone wanted to be ready in case the World War I arrived at their doorstep. Even if they planned out remaining neutral, other countries buying up a fuck ton of dynamite meant you didn't really want to be the one dude without some serious ammo in reserve in case some shit came your way. USAA was more than happy to profit from this international situation. Hello, war profiteering. We will sell the shit to anybody. But up until now, without a Boston tank of its own to store huge quantities of molasses temporarily,

the company was forced to purchase smaller amounts of molasses as needed from a third-party broker with the tank in South Boston. And that drove up costs and left USIA at the mercy of another supplier, two no-noes in big business. The commercial street tank was the answer they were looking for. It was in an ideal location sandwiched between rail lines and the busy inner harbor. The only bad thing about it, at least to Joe and the upper crust men of USAIA, was that it was in a neighborhood of Italian recent immigrant. speaking their strange dialect, cooking their odd, smelling delicious foods. The gel, these people seem more than odd.

They seem suspicious, conniving, even devious. What in the mazarin baga spaghetti, what they have to? However, they would have to accept that their tank would have to be located next to the curse-throwing lasagna fuckers. Not sure they made up those slurs, but they might have. I think many of us forget how Italian Americans used to be racially hated in the U.S. by many. Anyway, when it came down to it, profit was profit, and the new tank would allow the process of making industrial alcohol to go faster, more efficiently, with more money flowing into USIA's pockets. That is, if gel could just get his shit together and finish the tank. Delays meant, again, the crew had to work night and day, and a bunch of sweaty, exhausted ironworkers climbing all over dangerous metal-filled construction site.

Sometimes, you know, night meant that accidents were not merely a possibility, but practically in a inevitability. Justice construction had packed, or excuse me, had picked up at the beginning of December. On the 8th of December, Thomas Traffatis of Charlestown, a 35-year-old laborer, toppled from a staging plank, plunged 40 feet inside of the tank to his death. Many of the men were literally crying as they pulled their colleague's broken body from the inside of the tank shell and waited for the medical examiner to arrive with his inevitable conclusion. Jell, however, seemed a lot more worried about the half-day's work this cost him, rather than the tragedy of a young man's death.

Frustrating him further, the other men now had the gall, the complete audacity, to move more carefully, more deliberately across the site. It was almost like they didn't want to die at work either. Like, what the fuck? Why wouldn't they risk taking one for the sugar team, making him some more molasses mula? No, it was just more wasted time. Then on December 13th and 14th, a vicious storm with Gale Force winds pounded Boston. The newspapers called it a superstorm, the worst in a dozen years. More than 20 inches of snow were dumped on the city and travel was all but impossible,

either because it delayed trains, snowed over streets, or because of electric poles that had snapped and now lay in the middle of paths. That storm meant another couple of days, cleaning up the commercial street site. But by Christmas Day, things were looking up again. Even though Jell hated that he had lost yet another day of working so people could celebrate the stupid holiday with their families. But then December 26th brought another storm, which meant a number. another delay. Jell is pulling his hair out. He's cursing. He's fired up like Yosemite Sam getting

hoodwink yet again by Bugs Bunny. By late December, even though he was more comfortable in a heated office looking at numbers and reports, Jell's now at the sight as much as the men almost, watching with a clenched jaw, flexing his fists, yelling at them. At this point, in his desperation to finish the tank as quick as possible, he decides to make a risky call. The tank was supposed to be actually tested first, holding a bunch of water instead of the sugary. goo to make sure that there were no leaks. But Jell was like, nah, fuck that. Let's just wing it.

Let's hope for the best. What's the worst it could happen? He knew that filling it would take days, maybe even weeks, and those were days or weeks he did not have. So instead, Jell ordered the crews to fill the tank with just six measly inches of water. And when there weren't any leaks at the very bottom of the tank, Jell pronounced the entire tank is safe. And with that, the project will be wrapped up two days ahead of schedule, ahead of the looming

deadline on December 29th. Jell's over the moon, right? Pop the champagne, Jellie's getting that corner office in Manhattan, but not everybody seemed to think that the tank was in its final working state. Hammond Ironworks posted a letter to Jell, along with a final invoice for the tank that read, quote, You're a fucking fool, Jelly. I hope you drown in that molasses, you miserable shit. It would give us great pleasure to wonder if every time we ate a delicious molasses

cookie or drank some rum, we were eating or drinking a little bit of you. no it actually right quote in order to include it in this year's business and even if the tank is not technically speaking completely finished by december 31st we trust it will be satisfactory that our invoice is rendered under this date nevertheless despite the tank not truly being finished not as far as troubleshooting it went two mornings later the huge tanker arrived in boston and filled the new tank thirteen feet high with so much molasses arthur gel is overjoyed but that didn't mean the work was done Jell was now worried that sabotage could come for the tank, not from another competing business, but from anarchists, lasagna-fucker anarchists, who opposed the war in Europe, hated government, and loathed capitalism. And this actually wasn't just paranoia, speaking. Indeed, during November and December of 1915, there had been some suspicious explosions and fires as strategic manufacturing plants across the country. A strange fire had destroyed the Bethlehem Steelworks in Pennsylvania, which was producing guns for the Allies. Gell and others were convinced that because USIA was producing alcohol for munitions

they too would become targets for anarchists so he paid for 24-hour police protection at the site but by February a random worker Isaac Gonzalez observed what he felt was by far the biggest threat facing the tank, not anarchists but the tank's own shoddy construction

a mere two months into its existence the tank was already leaking. Thick dark molasses was seeping out between the seams several of its iron plates. It didn't flow rapidly because the molasses was pretty cold. It was kind of the consistency of heavy pudding. But even more concerning than the seeping was the sounds,

the heavy groans and rumbles. Isaac and others heard coming from inside the tank. Meanwhile, as the war went on, the demand for munitions kept increasing. This was music to the ears of people like Arthur Gill who wanted to sell more industrial alcohol than ever before, right? Come on, war! Keep killing each other, boys! That new Manhattan townhouse isn't going to pay for itself.

It meant more molasses going into the commercial street tank than ever before. And it meant more molasses oozing down from the side of the tank than ever before, painting rusty stripes on its gray facade. Occasionally young children from Italian families who live nearby would sneak in, get themselves a sweet treat from the puddles of molasses on the ground. God, I would have 100% been one of those kids. A candy puddle? Are you shitting me? Hell yes, I'll eat some of that sweet sludge off the ground.

the dirt just gives it texture. Jell and the U.S.IA did not care about the leakage. Who cared about lose a tiny bit of sugar when there was still so, so much sweet money to be made? While in 1914, U.S.I's stock had returned investors just under 2%, by 1916, it generated a return of more than 36%. And it achieved that in part because the U.S.IA had filled its commercial street tank to nearly almost 2 million gallons in 1916, just a smidge less than full capacity. this of course caused the tank to leak further so men with cock were hired to perform repairs on the tank patching up any spots with more obvious leakage although they never got all of it and even if they had there was still a bigger problem putting the equivalent of band-aids on the tank did not address the obvious structural problems leading leading to these leaks and some of the leaks especially on the harbor side were getting bigger despite the attempts to patch them they started high where the walls met the conical-shaped steel cover and seat molasses all the way to the bottom. They created a series of brackish, 50-foot streams that meandered

to the ground and pulled around the base of the tank. In other words, these leaks were starting to look more like streams. The USAIA was alerted to these large leaks, but if they were terribly worried about them, they did not let on. And the USAA was far more worried at the time about the international workers of the world protests that had swept the country that year, culminating in an actual riot in Boston's North Square. would the anarchists come for them would they blow up or topple the tank no but again there was maybe reason to worry at least according to the press and the government and before i share with these worries were it is time for this week's first to two mid-show sponsor breaks if you don't want to hear these ads please sign up to be a space lizard on patreon get the catalog ad free get these episodes early and more thanks for listening to those ads and now let's head to april of nineteen seventeen and talk of german and anarchists. In April of 1917, Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President, had requested a declaration of war,

and Boston streets were alive with a patriotic fervor that saw thousands attending huge rallies and gathering to sing the national anthem. Across the city, Bostonians rushed to enlist and acquire marriage licenses. Meanwhile, the Navy closed Boston Harbor at dark, allowing no vessel in or out, as divers laid mines and stretched wire netting across the floor of the harbor to thwart any daring German U-boats. Boston's DA's office put out a memo that the city was in, quote, grave danger from disturbances by anarchistic bans

who are holding nightly meetings, planning what they can do to tear down the structure of government while the country's eyes are fixed on danger from without. In this environment, any violence or even prospective violence was blamed on anarchists. The Capitol Police presence was increased in Washington, D.C., after the Secret Service, later tip that anarchists were planning to dynamite the capital building, a report that proved

to be false. In Pittsburgh, authorities blamed anarchists for an arson fire that destroyed a portion of the Etona chemical company, one of the country's largest munitions manufacturers and a major customer of U.S. industrial alcohol. Arthur Jell, well, he's paying close attention to all of this. He and many others are afraid of getting attacked by anarchists, anarchists that also made for a convenient scapegoat. Anything that went wrong, anything at all, could be blamed on anarchists. The ward also opened the door for the cutting of any red tape that slowed down the company's operations, and anarchists offered an excuse if anything went wrong as a result of extreme overproduction. Meanwhile, Isaac Gonzalez is about to have a nervous fucking breakdown. He keeps telling

Arthur Jell that the tank is leaky further and further from more and more seams all the time. The workers on the dock have questioned him about it, more and more Italian neighborhood children are gathering around the base of the tank at lunch to collect more and more molasses and small pails bringing buckets home now. In fact, Gonzalez, seems like he was a great dude, had become so worried about all this that he had started sleeping near the tank for several months, betting down in something called the pump pit shack. But his reports fell on deaf ears. Jell really did not need anybody gumming up the works for him. So he eventually told Gonzalez to go home at the end of his shift and shut the fuck up about it.

And Gonzalez, for the most part, would shut up. But over the next couple of years, Gonzalez would grow more worried. To anyone who was paying attention, it was clear that the pace of industry was simply too much for this tank to keep up with. Beginning in the spring of 1918, America made its largest contribution of forces to the war effort, yet transporting one and a half million soldiers to France within a six-month period.

These soldiers would, of course, need munitions. and the industry was happy to keep up with them. In terms of high explosives like TNT, ammonium nitrate, pickric acid, and others, U.S. production was up more than 40% was, or excuse me, was more than 40% larger than England's, and nearly double that of France for all of 1918. As a result, the Commercial Street molasses tank

would top off at 2 million gallons seven times that year, beginning in March of 1918 and continuing through December, full capacity over and over again. All of that made Isaac Gonzalez very, very anxious. He worked harder during the spring and summer of 1918 than he ever had before, and by the time July rolled around, he's exhausted. He always left his house between 2 and 2.30 in the morning to go check on the tank by 3. So he could then head home, pretend to wake up at 5 or 6th with the rest of the neighborhood.

Isaac's wife, she's completely fed up with this, but he feels like he has no other choice. He has to check the tank. It's his obsession. By July, Isaac is running on empty. The end of the month is the hottest on record in Boston with temperatures climbing to the high 90s. Four people had died in the heat wave so far, another death would occur in the first weeks of August. The heat had also seeped into the tank, and more and more people have been asking Isaac why it groaned and clanged, louder than it ever had before. It's almost like the steel was bending, dangerously warping, threatening to tear apart at the river. that held the structure together. And then alarmingly, one fellow worker told Isaac that summer that he liked to lean up against the tank to feel these strong vibrations up against his back. It's a regular vibration, as though the tank is bulging in and out, the man told him.

In a weird way, these remarks made Isaac feel better. It wasn't crazy, like Jell had implied, because other people were noticing this shit too. But in another way, it was even worse that everybody knew something is wrong with the fucking tank, and yet the company still isn't doing shit about it. But then in early August, the company does do something. Just not what Isaac wanted.

One morning on orders from gel, a crew arrived and spent the next two days painting the tank. Yeah, that'll fix it. Covering a steel gray shell with a rust brown color. So now people won't notice the molasses see it. Because if they can't see it, then it's not like it's even there, right? I mean, everybody knows that if you just hide a problem, it does in fact go away. If you can't see a wound, you don't have a wound.

that's true for people and true for big steel tanks finally isaac had had enough on september 1st 1918 insulted and distraught his heart heavy his nerves raw worried about his own sanity and in despair or despair over the future of his marriage isaac quits his job with the united states industrial alcohol company and enlists in the united states army he will ultimately spend the next year in columbus ohio training

and then the war will be over thankfully by the time his battalion is ready to be shipped out and then he'll return to a very different-looking commercial street. But backing up, first, on November 11th, 1918, Boston is overjoyed to open their morning papers and find headlines proclaiming that the war in Europe is over. Whole world and delirium of joy was one headline in the Boston Globe. Church bells rang out overlapping with the whistling of tugboats and foghorns in the harbor. It's truly a beautiful day.

And a much need of breath of fresh air, given the fact that an influenza epidemic had already claimed the lives of more than 500,000 Americans since early September in Boston where grave diggers had become scarce citrus tents for being used to cover stacks and stacks of unburied coffins, contributing to a gruesome, morbid, hopeless atmosphere. For Arthur Gill, our dear, dear, sweet cheeks, Mr. Sugarbottom himself had also been a bad few months. It actually really had been. Like many other business owners or managers, he had had to deal with the effects. of influenza on his employees, including a few who had died and production had been heavily disrupted. But unlike many others, Arthur did not see the end of the war as a good thing. When he read the paper that morning about the end of the war, it's doubtful he cried into tears

of joy and relief. It's more likely he met the morning's news with a pulse and vein in his forehead and profanity. The war ending meant that the need for munitions would go down and USAIA would need to find additional sources of revenue until the demand for non-military industrial alcohol grew again. Company executives with full support from Jill decided that they could retool the Cambridge plant's manufacturing process to produce grain alcohol for the rum and liquor industries now. USAA had produced some grain alcohol early in its existence prior to its shift to industrial alcohol, and gel was sure they could do so successfully again. But there's a big problem. Thanks to the influence of the Anti-Saloon League, Prohibition was looming. And the 18th Amendment

would soon be added to the U.S. Constitution, banning the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The law called for prohibition to take effect after a one-year grace period, started at the beginning of 1920. And that gave the U.S.IA a very narrow window of opportunity. If it could distill enough grain alcohol for the first quarter of 1919, there would be ample time to ship it to brewers and for them to distribute liquor to saloons and stores before Prohibition kicked in and then their business would go up and smoke. For people in the entire industry, those not prepared to enter into bootlegging, excuse me, it was an attitude of get everything you can while you can, right? Make that money now. And for Arthur Jell, that meant make that molasses

money now. Clock is ticking for old jelly. In mid-November, Jell would order a huge shipment of molasses from Cuba, due to arrive mid-January of 1919. The two-month window gave him just enough time to wrap up his previous production schedule and set a new grueling pace for 1990. To be extra secure, he had the tank cocked again,

the equivalent of just wrapping up a loose wing on a fucking airplane with some more duct tape. The cocking would be done by a man named Johnny Cock, no, John Urquhart, a boiler maker, a boiler maker for Walter W. Fields and Sons in Cambridge, who began his project, December 10,

1918 and john knew immediately like isaac had before him that something was not right here that the big tank needed more than cock you can't just cock away all your problems all right arthur cock is not always the answer uh as much as it may seem so john saw that molasses and a lot of it was leaking from several different seams now squeezing through the rivets sliding down the steel walls like lazy brown streams plopping onto the pavement below spreading slowly into the thick and somewhat deep pools. When Urquhart first washed the molasses off, pinheads of the dark liquid reappeared instantly.

Still, even though he figured that was a real fix for these leaks was above his pay grade, he did work hard, and for 10 straight days, he washed the stubborn molasses off with hot water and then cocked the seams as fast as he possibly could. Finally, on December 10th, he was done. The leaks had stopped for the moment. But also, at this point, the big tank not full. Soon his cock would be tested Like it had never been tested before

Soon a lot more pressure Would be introduced to his cock Could his cock stand firm Against that pressure Could his cock handle the sweet heat That was the million dollar question And it would be answered soon The big shipment of molasses from Cuba

Was on its way Just after 11 a.m., January 12th He showed up Frank Van Gelder brought the Milario into port The ship contained 1.3 million gallons of molasses 600,000 of them bound for the commercial street tank alone

before the rest proceeded to USAA's Brooklyn plant. At 11.20 a.m., tank supervisor William White gave Van Gelder the go-ahead and the captain ordered the discharge pumps to begin offloading the Mileros cargo. Or Miliero's cargo. The unloading progressed smoothly for the rest of the day and end of the next morning, completing at 10.40 a.m. on Monday, January 13th. So much molasses, it took them over 24 hours to unload it.

By 11 a.m. as the wharf grew crowded with horses, wagons, deliverymen, railroad cars, livestock, beer barrels, and shipping crates. Van Gelder had maneuvered the milliero across the inner harbor and pointed at seaward full speed ahead towards New York. He was well into the harbor when he first started hearing some loud popping sounds from the tank. William White heard them as he stood in the pump pit, and the team serves delivering their beer barrels to the dock who also heard them slowed to a confused stop. the warm molasses that had just flowed from the millierro's hold was mixing with the cold thick molasses that had been congealing inside the tank for weeks producing a bubbling churn that vibrated against the tank's walls many of those men had heard the tank grown before but what they didn't know was that when warm and cold molasses mixed the reaction triggers a fermentation process that produces gas and in a near full tank a tank filled to capacity

with 2.3 million gallons of molasses that weighed 26 million pounds, so overcapacity, the gas increases that pressure against the steel walls. And those steel walls, as illustrated by years of leaks, were not built to withstand much more pressure. But nothing would happen that day. And for most people who lived around the Commercial Street Wharf, at the beginning of that week, seemed like any other in cold, dreary Boston. Nothing would happen on Tuesday, January 14th, either. And by January 15th, a day that dawned,

cold and gray, it seemed like any danger, if anyone had ever really worried about it, had already passed. But it sure as hell hadn't. And now, before we dive into the details of this fateful day, time for today's second and two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listen to those sponsors. Now, back to January 15th, 1919, when Boston's North End gets buried in deadly liquid sugar. At four in the morning, Martin Clarty was walking home after he had finished, closing the pen and pencil club. I love that name, which he had bought three years earlier. Over that time, he'd made $4,000 enough to move his family,

which included his mom, brother and sister out from the shadows of the elevated railroad and to a nice house out in the suburbs. Martin planned to meet with his accountant that very afternoon to sell the club and his mother's previous house. Martin reaches home, and once inside, he scribbled a note to his sister Teresa, asking her to wake him at 12.30 p.m., which would give him more than enough time to get ready for his 1.30 p.m., meeting. He fell asleep in mere minutes. Around the time Martin got home, William White was

getting out to begin his day, making the initial preparations for the molasses to be delivered by a railway to the factory. It's a pretty light workday, all things considered, and William planned to meet his wife at the Jordan Marsh Department store that afternoon to have lunch and watch her try on some dresses. Lovely. By noon, he had grabbed his coat and set out to meet Sarah. As he did, he may have passed Pasquale Antasca and Antonio and Maria Dostasio. three kids waiting in the shadows of the elevated railway. They've been told by their parents

to gather some firewood while they were on their lunch break from the Paul Revere Elementary School on Prince Street. Antonio was crabby. He knew his dad would be watching from the upstairs window and he hated wearing two sweaters

while they ran around with his friends, which his parents made him do when it was cold and blustery. Where the hell were they supposed to get some firewood in Boston? Well, I guess, wherever some random wood was laying around. This was, it sounds like, the dumpster diving equivalent of firewood gathering

as opposed to them actually, you know, chopping down some trees. The children decided to sneak over to the tank to see if there was some firewood there, but within minutes, two railway workers caught Maria and the boys scrambled away. Antonio soon felt bad as he watched his sister getting lectured, so he decided to go back and help her, but he wouldn't make it to her in time.

The whole world around them seemed to break apart before he could. The railroad workers screamed, and Maria swung her head back to face them, her long hair trailing across her face, but Antonio saw that the men weren't actually screaming at Maria. Their malice agape, their eyes wide and terror, they were focused on something behind his sister, fixed on the spot that he had just vacated,

where Pasquale still hid. In that same instant, Antonio glimpsed a blur of movement to his left, saw a shadow falling across his sister. The giant molasses tank on the wharf had finally burst, exploded, really. Deadly and heavy steel shrapnel was raining down in the neighborhood, and an enormous wall of thick, dark liquid practically blotted out the daylight. The wave was 25 feet high, 160 feet wide at the

outset, not unlike a tsunami. But unlike an ocean wave whose momentum is concentrated in one direction, the wall of molasses pushed in all directions after it escaped the confines of the tank, so it was more like four separate walls of liquids smashing across the wharf and into the street. It was all moving at a breathtaking speed of 35 miles an hour initially, tearing the north end paving yard buildings apart into little more than splintered beams. One of those buildings was Martin Clarty's house. Mere moments before, Teresa Clarty had shaken her brother Martin awake. She was late waking him up.

He had less than an hour to get to his meeting. As she turned back down the hall, she heard a deep growling sound as the house began to shake, and she was thrown down to the floor. Martin woke up sinking in something, but he didn't know what it was initially. He'd first open his eyes when Teresa screamed, but then he felt himself fall overboard into some vast sea of liquid. It was only when he opened his mouth that he realized. what it was. Melassus. He felt himself sliding downward, out of control, as though

riding the churn of the most violent river rapids ever or being swept over a waterfall. Flailing, he battled the suction, struggling to lift his head, using his powerful arms to break the surface, and finally he breathed fresh air and actually managed to tread the molasses like water. In that way, he rode the pounding wave that dumped him into the middle of commercial street, where he managed to open his eyes and see that his entire house had been swept into the street where it slammed into the elevated railway supports and splintered into pieces. Legend has it. As he was swept down the street, he took a few moments to appreciate how unique and fun this experience was. Like a future amusement park water slide, but one where you get

to eat the water around you. And everyone can hear his squeal of joy as he floated down his new sweet street. Wee! Maybe that didn't happen. Maybe he didn't squeal with delight. What did happen was he spotted what seemed like a raft and used it to lift himself out of the dangerous tide of floating objects. Only after he had pulled himself up on this raft did he realize that the raft he had spotted was actually his own bed frame. Then he saw, this is fucking incredible, he saw a thin hand to his right protruding from the molasses like a white stick. He lay down on his bed frame raft, stretched his arms out, pulled the hand up with all of his strength, a head emerged from the dark sea, and he saw that the head belonged to his sister Teresa, coughing and gasping but still

alive. Holy shit. He put her on the raft. He told her, stay here. I'm going to look for Ma and Stephen. Then he was back into the black ooze, which had not stopped flowing. As it was Terry Martin's house from its foundation, the Great Wall of Molasses ripped the engine 31 firehouse to shreds. It crushed freight cars, crushed automobiles, crushed wagons. It trapped men, women, children, horses, dogs, cats, rats, wood, and steel, and a blob of hot, murderous sugar and debris. The molasses wave crashed across commercial street into brick tenements and storefronts. It rebounded off of the buildings, retreated like the outgoing tide. It crushed its wave of debris into any nearby surface. Anyone below ground, men working down in cellars, for example,

they were smothered almost instantly. Here and there, a rising form would appear to be rising up out of the muck before another tide of molasses often blotted it out. Nobody could escape. So many are literally drowning in sugar. Melassus waist-deep covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage, a Boston Post reported would write. Here and there struggle to form. Whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass,

showed where any life was. Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings, men and women, suffered likewise. rescue teams of police, firefighters, doctors, and nurses from the nearby Haymarket Relief Station were on the scene quickly. They were assisted by more than a hundred sailors from the nearby USS Nantucket and the Bessie J. All these rescuers had to lay down ladders, crawl out over the now hardening molasses in order to pull people out. Unfortunately, they were

too late to save little Maria Dostasio, who most likely had been the first one hit in the path of the Black Wave, who died almost immediately from asphyxiation. got her poor parents sending her out there for firewood. They had no idea this could happen, obviously. But still the guilt he must have felt. A firefighter spotted her tangled hair swirling in a sea of dark molasses and pulled out her small broken body. Her brother Antonio survived, though he suffered a fractured skull and concussion when he was thrown against the lamp post. Thankfully, a firefighter managed to snatch him up before the molasses swallowed him as well.

The third child, Pasquale and Tosca, disappeared. along with a dozen or so city workers, the patrolmen had seen working just a few minutes earlier. It wasn't clear to anyone. Just how many people had died or how many people could have died if some in the molasses' path hadn't been both brave and reckless. Just a few minutes earlier, Royal Albert Lehman, a brakeman for the Boston Elevator Railroad, had stood in the front vestibule of the third car of the passenger train bound for North Station when his ears filled with the screams of tearing steel and behind him a thunder clap like bang. Then he fell to trestle buckle and his train start to tip.

Just in time, the car settled back onto the tracks and cleared the wreckage, rounding the bend seconds before the support trestles buckled and collapsed. Lehman then sprinted to the nearest station and told a railroad worker to stop the next train coming in. He was informed that the next train was already headed there, so he sprinted back, scrambling over the broken track to the undamaged side. There he stood in the center of the track and screamed, Stop! The track is down! The track is down! Over and over. As a three-car train bored down on him,

Lehman did not jump out of the way. He stared down the locomotive, still screaming until finally it slowed and stopped. When the engineer got out of the train, Lehman burst out, the goddamn molasses tank burst. If it weren't for Lehman's standoff, the train would have likely plummeted down onto the street and caused even more fatalities.

Meanwhile, below the track, down on the street, people waited to be rescued, crushed underhouses, or pinned beneath objects like radiators, support beams, and pool tables. And as they lay stuck in place, the molasses kept rising, filling the space and threatening to drown them. Firefighters lay trapped beneath the collapsed firehouse, rescuers wiggling in to administer shots of morphine and glugs of whiskey to dull the pain while authorities cutaway sections of the blocking debris.

The medical examiner, Dr. George Burgess McGrath, finally arrived on the scene at 1.30 when molasses was still knee-deep in most places. Rescuers were still helping whoever they could while priests waited in to give the dead and the gravely wounded their last rights. Closer to the waterfront, near the former city stables, police grimly shot stuck horse after stuck horse, putting the poor beasts out of their misery. Dr. McGrath was directed over to the smashed Clarity House, where rescuers had brought out 65-year-old Bridget Martin's mother, her rib cage had been crushed, and she had died. The rest of the family, Martin, Stephen, and Teresa had all been taken to the Haymarket Relief

station. The small hospital was quickly swamped with more than 40 victims who needed sticky brown goo and blood clean from their wounds. Within an hour, the wheeled stretchers could barely move down the hall because everything was so damn sticky. Things got even more chaotic when family members started to arrive, begging nurses and doctors for information about their loved ones. 46-year-old James McMullen, the worker who had lectured Maria, lay on a cot with compound fractures in both bones and both lower legs. Such an injury meant a serious operation which could lead to an infection and kill him. Back at the wharf, as Dr. McGrath made his rounds,

someone else would arrive on the scene. Arthur P. Joe, Mr. Sugarbottom. His bosses had instructed him to say nothing, but to make sure that any broken pieces of the tank were not confiscated by law enforcement and instead were retained by the USAA. By early evening, the USAA had made a statement via its attorney, Henry F.R. Dolan went on the offensive,

blaming, quote, outside influences for the tank's collapse. Most likely, North and anarchists, those dirty lasagna fucker anarchists who must have planted a bomb to advance their radical agenda. We know beyond question that the tank was not weak, Dolan said. We know that an examination was made of the outside of the base of the structure

a few minutes before it's collapse. Uh-huh. It passed inspection. A few minutes before it fell apart. It's the fuck out of here. as darkness fell police called for electric lights so the rescue teams could continue their work and at haymarket doctors did what they could but there were just so many people people with broken bones people with internal bleeding infections already taking root fractured skulls and concussions by the days end the death toll it reached 11 nine men plus bridget maria but that did not account

for the missing like little pasquale headlines the following morning would report the first totals 11 dead, 50 hurt. Still, nobody knew why or how the tank had collapsed. Had it actually been anarchists, as U.S.IA implied? State chemist Walter Wedge and U.S. Inspector of Explosive Daniel T. O'Connell were convinced the tank had not been blown up, but that it had collapsed. Of course, the U.S.IA rejected that theory because it made them accountable. The day after the flood, January 16th, brought some new challenges.

Workers are now trying to remove the hardened molasses away with chisels and saws. finally they gave up used millions of gallons of seawater to sweep the molasses away staining the harbor brown until the summer indeed a coating of molasses would stick around Boston for weeks as people tracked it through the streets spread it to subway platforms to the seats inside of trains and streetcars and restaurants and homes stuck it on to pay phones and pool tables and railings and more but i'm getting ahead of myself back to mid-January 1919. The molasses is still claiming lives. More would die over the following days, succumbing at the hospital to their injuries. On January 20th, Martin, Teresa, and Stephen Clarty held a funeral

for their poor mother, Bridget. The same day, rescue workers pulled out 10-year-old Pascuali Ian Tosca's battered molasses-covered body from behind a railroad freight car as late afternoon dusk enveloped the waterfront. The molasses had driven the railroad car into Pusqually, carried them both about 50 feet and smashed both up against the wall, the railroad car, crushing the little boy instantly. His arms, legs, pelvis, and chest were broken. His face disfigured beyond recognition. But at least his parents, Giuseppe and Maria, would be able to have a funeral for him. Eleven days after the tank burst, on the 26 firefighters fished the body of 37-year-old truck driver of Flaminio Galarani from the water underneath one of the Bay State Railroad freight houses.

The molasses wave had lifted both him and his four-ton 1915 packard truck into the water. The vehicle was smashed to pieces, and Flaminio drowned in a combination of water and thick molasses. That brought the total number of the dead to 19 lives, and authorities were still reporting one man to be missing. A 32-year-old Italian immigrant named Cesare Niccolo, who drove a team and wagon and delivered goods to the waterfront. The rest had been recovered, and so now the folks of the story of the flood became, who is to blame. At first, many trusted U.S.I.A's line figured it must have been some kind of anarchist sabotage.

That meant the Bostonians were bewildered when they picked up their morning newspapers on Saturday, February 8th, and saw that Judge Wilfred Bolster had put the blame squarely on U.S.IA, Arthur Gill, and overall corporate incompetence. He wrote, quote, my conclusion from all this evidence is that this tank was wholly insufficient in point of structural strength to handle its load, insufficient to meet either legal or engineering requirements. The structure being maintained in violation of the law, the leasy has incurred the penalty which is absolute.

I have therefore ordered process against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. Based on Bolster's inquest report, district attorney Joseph Peltier presented evidence to a grand jury the following week. The evidence tends to show that the huge tank collapsed by reason of faulty construction and not because of an explosion, Peltier said. Breathe easy, Lazzania fuckers.

Breathe easy. Five days later, the grand jury issued its report. It agreed that the structure did not comply with the law, but on the larger issue of criminal negligence, the grand jury ruled that there was insufficient evidence to justify an indictment for manslaughter. There would be no manslaughter charges for anyone in USIA. Breathe easy, Mr. Sugarbottom. The U.S.IA, however, would not take this small win. Instead, in a brief statement, his last until civil proceedings began in 1920, the company reiterated its belief that anarchists, evil-doers, had used dynamite to blow up the tank. Then on May 12, four months after the molasses disaster, the body of Cesare Niccolo was pulled from the water. His corpse had been under the wharf near the Boston and Worcester Commercial Street Freight Station. His wife Josie identified his body, and then some additional molasses.

disasters are reported. In August of 1919, the USAIA reported to authorities that two of its molasses steamers had vanished without a trace and without any distress calls en route from the Caribbean to the northeast. What the hell? Both steamers had full loads. The USAIA assumed both had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. The disappearances were bizarre and unprecedented. How could that have happened? Well, those boogeymen lasagna fuckers had struck again, that's how. The USAA said that Only anarchist bombs could have destroyed the ship so thoroughly that no trace of them was ever discovered, and that this was proof of a complex anarchist plot that also clearly targeted the Commercial Street tank, of course. They were everywhere, and they would stop at nothing to bring America to its knees.

These OG Antifa boogeymen were obsessed with sugar-based devastation. Then a fire would break out on the night of September 14th at the USAA factory in Brooklyn, New York, with a company claiming that somebody had used an incendiary device to begin the fire. no doubt part of that same anarchist plot. Damn you, lasagna fuckers, damn you! Maybe that was what really happened, or maybe it wasn't. Though all this made their argument about what had happened to the tank appear stronger, constructing the image of a company beleaguered by continual anarchist attacks did not help it

when it came to generating a profit. And on December 1st, 1919, USIA shut down its manufacturing facility in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, firing nearly all of the 125 people who had worked there. But not Arthur Jell. Arthur P. Jell was indeed transferred to New York City headquarters, where he became assistant treasurer and vice president, as he had hoped, of U.S. I.A. So rest easy, me, sacks. Feel good, knowing that not only was Mr. Sugarbottom not punished for his corner-cutting

corporate treachery, he was rewarded. So, yay, right? Come on, for he's a jolly good fellow. Masanari, but I got a spaghetti, for he's a jolly good fellow. Luigi Pizza Pie, Luigi Pizza Pie, Luigi Pizza Pie, Mazadipa spaghetti, mazade spaghetti, Luigi Pizza Pie. Wait, that reaction, I haven't sung that in a while, might not have been correct. I forgot he was the bad guy in the story for a second. But the story not over.

The family still wanted justice. Hearings would begin August 10th, 1920, presided over by Hugh W. Ogden. 119 residents would join in total, making the reaction to the, the Great Molasses Flood, the first modern class action suit in U.S. history. Damon Everett Hall would be counsel for the plaintiffs. Charles Francis Choate for the defense, almost chode. Interesting. Reportedly, the company spent more than $50,000 on expert witnesses to buttress its case, including scientists, metallurgists. That's a weird word, academics, and explosion experts.

But how far would that go when countering the hurstance? horrific testimony of the victims and their families. In his opening statement, Damon Hall described as suffering of the victims, the violent deaths of Bridget Clority, Maria Dostasio, Pascuali, Ian Tosca, as well as the numerous firefighters trapped under the wreckage of the firehouse and the horrific damage to the area. He pointed out that it was lucky that the tank hadn't been filled in capacity in the summer. If it had exploded then, it would have killed dozens, if not hundreds of mothers and children who frequently came to use the nearby waterfront playground.

Despite this damning testimony, the U.S.IA, still believed it could win this case. On Thursday, September 2nd, Charles Choate, Mr. Chode took center stage and Hugh Ogden's courtroom to deliver his opening remarks. He spoke to how the people who worked for the U.S.IA were top-of-the-line professionals who regularly maintained the tank. Would a tank in the hands of such capable workers simply collapse, or was it more likely that it would, I don't know, maybe be blown up, maybe by anarchists? they just would not let that shit go. They had thrown that scapegoat down on the ground and they were kicking it for all it was worth. Cho claimed that the USAA had hired scientists

to conduct an experiment, putting a stick of dynamite in a replica tank filled with molasses, and that tank had exploded just like the Commercial Street tank. Coincidence? Despite this totally legitimate and not at all stupid argument,

the battle would be long and drawn out with both sides calling witnesses. Hall got a major victory when an expert admitted that an explosion would have likely shattered nearby windows, but the only windows that were shattered were the ones that the molasses waves had struck directly. Another wind came in the form of Isaac Gonzalez, right? That guy we heard so much about earlier, the guy who complained about the safety of the tank literally

for years. He had recently returned from Ohio. His testimony about Jell's inaction painted a picture of corporate negligence, a corporation that would do anything for money and nothing for safety. But Hall wouldn't rest there. He wanted somebody else. Someone who knew the tank better than anyone on the wharf. He wanted Arthur P. Jell. He would get his chance to speak with him on March 25, 1921 in New York City when Damon Hall, Charles Choate, Henry F. Dolan and a court stenographer all arrived at the elegant Hotel Belmont to question Jell. Hall already pissed off that Chote had found a workaround to get Jell out of having to come to Boston would be merciless. He got Jell to admit that nobody had tested the tank adequately, that nobody had inquired into the

quality of the steel, that everything had been rushed in order to meet that December 31st deadline. When Jell protested that there had not been enough time to fill the tank for a test run, Hall asked him if he had looked into it, asked around, inquired about getting some waters sent over. Jell admitted that he had not. Did he have any technical expertise at all? Hall asked him. Did he have an engineering degree, familiarity with construction sites? Did he know anything at all about building and maintaining a giant fawken steel tank? Jell admitted, no. He did not. Still, the case would drag on for more than two years.

Jell's testimony had proved that the company was to blame for the molasses flood, but the company would still fight tooth and nail about how much the victims were to be owed, even arguing this is so messed up, that the little kids who had died were legally trespassers. And so, their families were owed nothing. This is even more ridiculous. They also said that nobody who had died from asphyxiation had suffered because they had been killed so quickly, so their families didn't really deserve compensation either. That's wild.

I mean, I can actually understand making a case for trespassers, right? You know, I mean, people shouldn't, yeah, like legally, if they're not supposed to be there, and if something bad happens to them while they're in a place or legally not supposed to be, I can at least understand making an argument for not paying out for that, but not pain because people died quick is wild.

Look, that all these people die directly due to us ignoring obvious construction defects, defects that occur directly because of our own unreasonable timeline. Yes, we're not arguing that. But listen, people die, okay? Literally every day. And if you really think about it, the best thing you can ask for is a relatively quick and painless death.

It's a blessing, right? Is anyone going to argue that? It's a blessing. So riddle me this. Why should we have to pay for dealing out a sweet, sugary blessing? Finally, in mid-July, 1933, three years after it begun, the testimony ended. though closing arguments would go on for another 11 weeks. For months, Hugh Ogden would go over court records, exhibits, and reports until finally on April 28, 1925, he delivered his verdict.

Ogden rejected outright U.S.IA's claims of anarchistic sabotage, citing the company's failure to produce literally any evidence at all to support that claim. Pointing out that the tank's concrete foundation was not damaged at all along with nearby windows, Ogden dismissed USIA's claim that a 10-pound dynamite bomb could have been detonated inside the tank without making any impression in the foundation. With that, the only other explanation for the tank's collapse was structural weakness, structural weakness that someone knew about and did nothing about. Indeed, Ogden reserved his harshest criticism for Arthur P. Jell and the USIA management that allowed him to oversee the project.

Ogden would say of Jell specifically, and I love this. He had no time visited any other place. plant, which was an operation. He had no technical or mechanical training. Could not read a plan or tell for an inspection of specifications what factor of safety was provided for in them. Could not read a blueprint for the erection of a tank, consulted no engineer, builder, or architect as to what was a proper factor of safety, and made no investigation regarding what factor of safety ordinary engineering practice called for. He made no personal investigation as to factors of safety, did not talk with any representative of the Hammond Ironworks about

factors of safety. He had blanket authority to enter into any necessary contract for the construction of the tank and the equipment to be used with it given to him by the president of the defendant company. Translation, who the fuck put this idiot in charge? He's a moron. He had no business managing the construction of a paper goddamn airplane, let alone a massive steel industrial tank the fuck is wrong with you people ogden recommended an estimated three hundred thousand dollars in total damages the company would actually ultimately pay out six hundred and twenty eight thousand uh eleven point eight million adjusted for inflation it would take too much time to discuss how much everybody got because the payouts varied from victim to victim

with those who held on longer getting more than those who died instantly which seems fucking ludicrous to me uh dead is dead in addition to the damages for the loss of their mother, Martin and Teresa Clarty, were awarded $2,500 each for injuries. They received $1,800 for the destruction of their house. Houses were so much cheaper back then. That is still less than $34,000 adjusted for inflation, and they lived in an actual house, not a small tin shed. The city of Boston, meanwhile, was allocated more than $25,000 for their buildings,

and the Boston Elevated Railroad Company given $42,000 for damages to the overhead trestle and tracks. But the most lasting impact that the Boston molasses flood had was on safety standards in construction nationwide. The Boston Building Department introduced a requirement for all engineers and architects' calculations to be filed with their plans and for all stamped drawings to be signed.

This practice would eventually become standard throughout the U.S. As for the U.S.IA, well, for starters, they did not rebuild the tank. I mean, with prohibition looming, that makes sense. The property became a yard for the Boston elevated railway, which later became the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The site later became a recreational complex called Langan Park, still in use under that name today.

Over the longer term, USAA's business changed names and ownership. It later appeared as U.S. industrial chemicals, and it merged with national distillers in the early 1950s. National distillers, chemical slash industrial divisions, went through further corporate changes in later decades, but we'll skip all that boring shit. as for Arthur P. Jell. It's not really clear what happened to Mr. Sugarbottom. Little is known of Jell's life following the trial. Records are inconclusive. But they indicate that he lived in New Jersey,

later moved to Maryland, and died in 1963 at the age of 85, and that he was survived by his wife, Mary, a daughter, and four grandchildren. We don't know if he ever felt regret for the role he played in the Boston molasses flood, a big role, or if he began to reconsider how big business

should think about its effects on people, neighborhoods, and communities. We don't know if he privately felt it was all worth it in the end. All that death and destruction, all that misery and loss, just so he could become a company man and have a big corner office. Was he all haunted by visions of frightened people who were consumed by something the whole world thought of as, well, delicious? Until it burst from the USAIA tank and its dark and sticky flood?

Or in those bodies, did he only see lost money and not lost lives? And that's it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. What a strange tragedy. If you enjoyed that story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Catalog, beefier episodes at Time Suck, Mondays at Noon Pacific. Time. I don't know why I felt like to need to add time. What is noon Pacific, if it's not time?

New episode is the now long-running paranormal podcast, scared to death every Tuesday at midnight, with two episodes of Nightmare Fuel. Some fictional horror written by me thrown into the mix each month. Thanks to Sophie Evans for her initial research on this one and for submitting this as a topic possibility. Thanks to Logan Keith polishing up the sound of today's episode. Please go to bad magic productions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend. Mad Magic Productions