Boston molasses flood conversw trial#

But I think it’s great that it’s there,” says Alex Goldfeld, president of the North End Historical Society. “I have heard people say that they’ve had a difficult time locating the plaque, especially because it’s not at eye level. Because for about 75 years, there was nothing. In fact, I’m also thankful it exists-and grateful to the Bostonian Society for installing the first-ever plaque there. “I guess I’m thankful there’s something.” “It certainly doesn’t do the tragedy justice,” says Stephen Puleo , author of Dark Tide, the essential text chronicling the Great Boston Molasses Flood. They placed it on a squat stone wall along the perimeter of the North End’s Langone Park, during a time when the Society was installing historical markers all over the city. The sign was installed by the Bostonian Society, a preservation organization that maintains the Old State House, in the mid-1990s. “Best to do your research before going as there is no local information on site other than the plaque.” “This is an often forgotten but very interesting piece of Boston history,” reads another. “Insufficient plaque for the sheer tragedy that occurred here,” reads one Google review for the marker, which boasts a rating of 4.5 stars. But there isn’t enough room to communicate all of that on a small green sign. Beyond the havoc it wreaked, the tragedy resulted in one of the state’s first class-action lawsuits, and set precedence for modern zoning laws. Two children home from school during lunchtime perished while gathering firewood. The flood hit the working-class immigrants of the neighborhood hardest, killing and injuring people like wagon drivers, paving yard laborers, blacksmiths, and unsuspecting victims inside their homes. Pieces of the exploded molasses tank knocked down elevated train tracks and crushed buildings. People caught in the clutches of the wave suffocated to death. A molasses tank explosion that sent a 15-foot-high wave of sugary sludge sweeping through Boston sounds comical, and to some, a little far-fetched.

The story of the Great Boston Molasses Flood has long captured the imaginations of history lovers across the country. And if I wasn’t looking for it, I may not have seen it at all.

At the moment, the small sign is the only marker honoring the Great Boston Molasses Flood, a tragedy that killed 21 people in the North End. “Boston Molasses Flood” it read in white lettering, followed by a three-sentence description of the event that occurred 100 years ago this month.

I scanned the street until I found what I’ve never once spotted before: a small green sign on a stone wall, positioned about a foot or so off the ground. I was inspecting the sidewalk closely, searching for a plaque marking one of the craziest-and deadliest-disasters in Boston’s history. US Industrial Alcohol would later pay the flood victims and their families $628,000 - the equivalent of $9.2 million today.While strolling along Commercial Street on a recent January morning, I kept my head down. A court-appointed auditor disagreed, and in 1925 ruled that the company was to blame for the disaster. The company steadfastly blamed anarchists.

Boston molasses flood conversw trial#

The trial produced three theories about the cause of the rupture: structural failure of the tank, fermentation of the molasses that led to an eruption and sabotage via a bomb. Litigation swiftly followed the explosion, and the lawsuit and trial against the tank's owner, US Industrial Alcohol, would last six years and grow to one of the most exhaustive in the state's history. 'The sticky liquid now blended, chameleon-like, with the fresh coat of paint, indiscernible from the tank's wall,' Puleo wrote. After an employee reported a leak, the company acted - by painting over the grey shell of the tank with a rust-brown colour. During the summer of 1918, one of the hottest on record in Boston, North End residents began noticing leaks at the tank. The second part of that question was easily answered.