Great Molasses Flood Site

A company hid a leak with a coat of paint, and a neighborhood paid for it.

Collection: Boston: More Stories · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

Wreckage along Commercial Street after the flood, 1919 · BPL, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

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How the story begins

Children used to come to this spot with pails, because the tank that stood here leaked. It was fifty feet tall and full of molasses, which the company turned into industrial alcohol. It leaked from the first day. Neighbors complained. The company's answer was paint. The treasurer in charge of the job, Arthur Jell, had the tank painted brown, the color of what was running down its sides.

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