EP 67 | Molassacre, The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, Boston, Massachusetts

Late Release!

Coming in hot with the history on this one with the Corpse Flower, The Tot Finder, a Nine-Alarm Fire, and The Wizard of Oz/Darkside of The Moon, The Beaneaters, and the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. 

The Molassacre. A Molasstrophe. That's what happens when 2 million gallons of molasses explodes onto the narrow streets of the North End, in a bizarre and unbelievable story of Boston's dark wave of history. 

On January 15, 1919, a 26 million pound dark wave of stickiness surged through the North End of Boston, seemingly gaining strength as it rolled toward Boston Harbor. A massive swell toppled telephone poles, twisted metal trolley tracks, crushed freight cars, flooded basements, and ripped buildings from foundations. Chest-deep molasses warmed from the above average temperatures thinned out into a coating three feet deep that would grab people like human fly paper, animals struggled to get free of it, only sinking further.

I will be at the True Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival in Denver on July 12-14.

Crime of the Truest Kind
Massachusetts and New England crime stories
Hosted by Anngelle Wood
@crimeofthetruestkind

Chapters

• 0:00 True Crime - Episode 67
• 20:11 The Great Molasses Flood of 1919
• 34:37 The Great Molasses Flood Fallout

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Thank you to those of you who came out to Faces Brewing last week in Malden. It was a great show. I got the audio today from Faces and didn't have time to really review it too much. It definitely needs some editing for sharing on the feed. There was a fair amount of crowd interaction but none of it is captured on the mic very well. But Emily Sweeney and I talked quite a lot about some cold cases and I will share it with you. It'll be a surprise episode for next week. How does that sound? Thank you so much to all of the show supporters Welcome.

Anngelle Wood: 1:21

Solid gold, michelle, wicked cool. Amy. Wicked cool. Courtney, total gemorah. Brandy m, cindy c v brandt. Solid golds, solid gold. Pam k wicked cool. Brandy s wicked cool. Mark with a c Wicked Cool. Devil Dog. Wicked Cool. Rebecca L and Superstar EPs Rhiannon, lisa McColgan you rock and you rule.

Anngelle Wood: 1:54

And also this week you gave the dogs some bones and I love you for that. Beck and Bob S, I will send you some thank you packages if I have your address. Things are going pretty well in the find a new job front. Maybe I'll have some news I can share with you soon. I mean, don't we all wish we were independently wealthy and we could just do all of these projects that we love morning, noon and night and not have to worry about I don't know, keeping the lights on or making sure my dogs have food? I know you know. Thank you, everybody who has contributed to the show this far has contributed to the show this far. You will help send me to Denver for True Crime Podcast Festival on July 12th, 13th and 14th, where I will be hosting a panel we are going to talk about. Have you Seen Andy, the HBO documentary based on the 1976 disappearance of the nine-year-old boy from Lawrence Mass named Andy Puglisi? I will be talking with Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, who created the documentary, put years and years and years of her time into the research and production of that film and also research and production of that film, and also Faith Puglisi will join us, andy Puglisi's mom, who now lives out west. I'm looking forward to that.

Anngelle Wood: 3:33

Follow the show at Crime of the Truest Kind. Support the show. Patreon four tiers starting at $1. Give the dogs a bone. Drop a tip in the jar. Include your address if you would like me to send you something as a thank you.

Anngelle Wood: 3:50

This is episode 67. It is high on history, so buckle up. Death by molasses, the Boston Molassacre, the Molastrophe Summer in Boston, massachusetts, titletown. Boston Celtics picked up their 18th championship, one more Then their adversaries, the Los Angeles Angeles Lakers, and they hold the most championships in league history. That stinks for you and sometimes for us. We have had some really terrible seasons. Like a lot of them, the Patriots have not been at their winningest as of late.

Anngelle Wood: 4:45

And that smells. And it has been the season of bloom at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. That part's new For the amorphophallus titanum, a blossom with the scent of rotting meat. How romantic, known around the Arboretum as Dame Judy Stench, but why so ghoulish? The potent smell it releases combines rotting wounds, garlic cheese, old sweat, all to attract flies and beetles necessary for its pollination, the sort of insects that thrive by eating flesh. The corpse flower. It blooms an average of six to eight feet tall, with a green exterior and deep red interior. It can reach heights of 20 feet tall. The native range is Sumatra, indonesia. It's considered endangered. The corpse flower has a lifespan of 30 to 40 years, but they bloom very rarely. On average every 7 to 10 years the corpse flower at the Arnold Arboretum blooms for all of a day and I missed it, catcha, in seven to 10 years.

Anngelle Wood: 6:09

We often make jokes about the MBTA here in the Boston area. On hot days the subway smells. On other days it also smells and sometimes it catches on fire. Now when I research topics for the show, it leads me to many different places and then I try to reel it in and have it make some sort of sense. I tap into historic things about Massachusetts and New England. When I make a connection to something I get really excited about it, like the Tot Finder sticker we remember from our youth. Well, former Boston Fire Commissioner Leo Stapleton is often credited for the idea of the Tot Finder sticker. The commissioner I'm referring to is Leo D Stapleton, not the Leo J Stapleton as is mentioned in a few places on the internet. I could find no Leo J Stapleton in relationship to the Boston Fire Department or the Totfinder sticker.

Anngelle Wood: 7:23

But what I do know is that Commissioner Stapleton fought hundreds of fires in his decades plus on the Boston Fire Department, having seen some of the worst of the worst cases of loss of life, children particularly during his time. According to several fire department sites, children account for over one-third of the nation's fire casualties. In no wonder, in the confusion of a fire, families often become separated. All too frequently the result is a child trapped in their room, cut off from rescue. So that suggests to me parents and families make an escape plan. I know the thought of it is dreadful. I read that on a number of department sites, including Merrimack, new Hampshire, where I also learned that about one in every four fires is intentionally set and almost half of these fires were set by people under the age of 16. I won't rabbit hole this one too much I could.

Anngelle Wood: 8:29

The American Psychological Association says there are types of fire setters. Two include curiosity, accidental cry for help, delinquent and severely disturbed. And in true crime, the one we talk about the most, the severely disturbed, as lore would have it. Commissioner stapleton is said to have come up with the idea of stickers on windows where children slept to be able to find them faster. This is due in part to children being afraid to leave for the smoke and the fire, the noise or possibly the fear of the rescuers themselves. I mean they are wearing a great deal of equipment. The oval-shaped, silver and orange reflective sticker was to alert rescue that a child was in that room and to go directly to these windows in the event a child is missing or unaccounted for during a fire. No one has more experience in this than a veteran firefighter who's seen way too many tragedies.

Anngelle Wood: 9:33

The story goes that the commissioner was impacted by a fire in the 1970s where four kids died from fire and heavy smoke. They hid with no way to get out. This reminds me of a story from my own childhood where an uncle, uncle Hermie my parents called him not really an uncle I don't even remember his real full name or any of the kids' names to even attempt to look this up, but I was told he lost all of his kids in a house fire somewhere in Massachusetts in the 1970s. I wish I could look it up in news archives. I have no idea, but I do remember something about the kids being in the rooms above adults. I know many, many parents are superstitious about that very thing and I also thought for a minute wow, that must be why my parents got those tot finding stickers. Then my follow-up thought was oh, they handed them out at school. That's where they got them.

Anngelle Wood: 10:35

But the tot finder program was a hugely successful safety campaign with more than 35 million stickers distributed by local fire departments. I still see some fire departments post about Tot Spotter and Tot Finder stickers. The practice fell out of favor, though. First because the stickers often remained on windows long after a child had grown and, predictably, this is also said to be a beacon of bad intentions. Creepers see the sticker beaming like a spotlight. My kids are sleeping right in here. Yeah, there's truth to that. Fire professionals will say they have proven unnecessary, that. Their training teaches them to perform a systematic search of the entire house. And the alternate spot for a Tot Finder sticker is the bottom corner of the door, where it would be reflective with a flashlight. Not a terrible idea.

Anngelle Wood: 11:33

Now, whether Commissioner Stapleton came up with the Tot Finder remains unconfirmed, but I do like sharing his story and the history he was a part of. He became a chief officer in 1965, commanded firefighters at thousands of fires, including what has been called the Roxbury Riots of 1967 and the civil unrest that continued in Boston and around the country. The Harvard Crimson wrote this in June 1967. The Harvard Crimson wrote this in June 1967. Until June 2nd, boston's predominantly Negro section of Roxbury remember this was 1967, our language is very, very different. Roxbury was a peaceful community in the areas of education, job training and placement, recreation, welfare, sanitation and housing. Its residents were working quietly and steadily through various programs for the improvement of their neighborhood and their lives.

Anngelle Wood: 12:32

But on June 2nd something happened. Three days of rioting and violence followed a sit-in demonstration by the Mothers for Adequate Welfare MAW at the Grove Hall office in Roxbury. Adequate Welfare MAW at the Grove Hall office in Roxbury. A group of mothers and their supporters were doing a sit-in at the local welfare office off Blue Hill Ave for the third time in eight days. They had demonstrated the previous Friday, only to leave in frustration. They had arrived again the day before and stayed overnight without incident. But on June 2nd, a Friday, the workers wanted to close the office for the weekends and the mothers' grievances had not yet been considered. Welfare director Daniel J Cronin had not come to the office to talk to the mothers. This time Ma decided they would not be put off again. This time Ma decided they would not be put off again.

Anngelle Wood: 13:25

The demonstrators used bicycle chains to shut the double-setup exit doors to the building. Policemen who were stationed inside tried unsuccessfully to cut the chains and called for reinforcements. In the next hour and a half, over 30 policemen entered the building through a window, while a large crowd gathered outside. When Welfare Director Cronin arrived, after hearing that office workers were trapped inside the building, the protesters insisted on speaking to him over loudspeakers through a window. He refused. Groups of policemen made their way in and around the building. Among the chaos was a Harvard student who must have retold the happenings to the Crimson reporters, saying how police rushed the people wielding billy clubs and shouting. Another group of policemen broke through the crowd outside to reach the entrance and crashed through the glass doors. While the police were clearing the building, one of the mothers shouted out of the window they're beating our people in here. That set off a response from the crowd outside and they rushed the police. Police used billy clubs to push them to the other side of Blue Hill Ave.

Anngelle Wood: 14:36

The Boston Globe reported on the 50th anniversary in 2017 about the demonstration of 30 women who comprised the Mothers for Adequate Welfare, and how it went off without incident Until it didn't. It was a peaceful protest that turned violent in an instant. It created a torrent of events that consumed 10 blocks and lasted for three days. I wonder how many Bostonians know about that. One of the high-profile fires Commissioner Stapleton led was at the Prue, the 52-story Prudential Tower, where on January 2nd 1986, about 1,500 occupants of the skyscraper were rescued from the floors above 14. That's where a nine-alarm fire started that forced hundreds of office workers to run for the smoke-filled stairwells. A radio station on the 44th floor was knocked off the air. It was W-E-E-I-A-M for the curious. Twenty people were injured and 7 firefighters. All were treated for heat exhaustion or smoke inhalation. The fire started on the 14th floor that was empty and under renovations at the time. As a result of this fire, the Boston Fire Department sponsored state legislation requiring all high-rise buildings in the Commonwealth, including more than a thousand in Boston, to be retroactively equipped with automatic sprinkler systems. It passed and the mandatory installations were completed in 1997.

Anngelle Wood: 16:19

The same year, by the way, wzlx midday, dj George Taylor Morris, uncovered the mythical connection between the Wizard of Oz, the 1939 film, and Pink Floyd's 1973 super famous Dark Side of the Moon record, the one that stayed on Billboard 200 from March 1973 until July 1988. 800 plus weeks on the charts. It sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. That DJ was here in Boston and WZLX was in the Prue on the 24th floor from 1991 until 2007, when we moved to the Brighton building where WBCN was at the time, and we did have a long CD to play. If we were ever forced to evacuate the building, I don't know what was on it probably a lot of Allman Brothers, and if you are wondering what it is like to work in the Prue Tower, it has a magnificent view.

Anngelle Wood: 17:31

Commissioner Leo D Stapleton retired in 1991. Firefighting ran in his family. His father, john B Stapleton, was a firefighter and chief of the department in the 1950s. His two sons, leo Jr and Garrett, also firefighters. Commissioner Stapleton went on to write several books at least 10, including his biography called Commish. He passed away in 2021 at the age of 93. Boston has faced many disasters the busing riots of the 1970s, coconut Grove Fire of 1942, the Blizzard of 78, the Marathon bombings in 2013,. Dianne Lane's accident in the Perfect Storm, 2000.

Anngelle Wood: 18:17

But molasses, mass killing. How is it possible that 21 people would end up dead by molasses? I have pondered it more than once. The Great Molasses Flood, the Molassacre, the Molastrophe, the Molaster All right, not that one.

Anngelle Wood: 18:40

Molasses has a history Popular in the pre-20th century, it was plentiful, affordable and routinely used as sweetener in cooking and baking, used for brewing, beer and rum and well, all kinds of alcohol. And molasses is vegan Not that anyone knew what that meant in the olden times or cared what that meant in the olden times. It sounds sweet, but molasses has a grim history in the slave trade. From the 1600s until the first half of the 1800s, traders sold slaves from Africa to Caribbean sugar plantation owners in exchange for barrels of molasses. The molasses would then get shipped up to Boston or New England where it was made into pre-prohibition rum. That rum was carried to West Africa where they used the liquor to barter for slaves. That was all to come to an end when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. On June 19, 1865, two years after the president emancipated slaves in America, union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, texas, with news of freedom. More than 250,000 now former enslaved Americans embraced freedom by executive decree in what became known as Juneteenth Freedom Day.

Anngelle Wood: 20:11

A Dark Tide that's the name of a 2004 book by author Stephen Puglio about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. He writes around noon on January 15th 1919, a group of firefighters was playing cards in Boston's North End. They heard a tremendous crash. It was like a roaring surf, one of them would say later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window. Oh my God, he shouted to the other men Run.

Anngelle Wood: 20:55

A 50-foot tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront. Its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead was not known for days. It would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was responsible for this disaster.

Anngelle Wood: 21:34

How can this be? How can molasses with a consistency thicker than maple syrup, almost like honey? How does this turtle of a sauce come racing through the city streets like a tsunami wave? In January, january in Boston, I learned a little bit about dynamics of fluid. A 26 million pound dark wave of stickiness surged through the north end of Boston, seemingly gaining strength as it rolled, headed for Boston Harbor. That swell would topple telephone poles. It twisted metal trolley tracks. It crushed freight cars. It flooded basements and ripped buildings from their foundations. Chest-deep molasses that was warmed from the above-average temperatures that day thinned out into a coating three feet deep that would grab people like human flypaper, and animals struggled to get free of it, only sinking further. 2.3 million gallons of molasses was set free onto Commercial Avenue, moving at a surprising clip. The giant molasses tank located at 529 Commercial Street had erupted, giving way Property of the Purity Distilling Company, a subsidiary of the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. The tank and its contents were valued at $250,000 in 1919, with an estimated total property loss of around $500,000. Property loss of around $500,000. Today's equivalents $4.5 million and $9 million respectively.

Anngelle Wood: 23:21

The 50-foot-tall storage tank was built by the United States Industrial Alcohol Company, the USIA, in 1915 to serve its Purity Distilling Company subsidiary, which fermented molasses to produce industrial alcohol for war. World War I was raging across Europe and industrial alcohol was in high demand to produce cordite, a smokeless gunpowder used in ammunition and artillery shells. No one cares enough about home cooking to have 26 million pounds of molasses lying around. It made them big dollar bills in war times. See where this is going, with many lucrative war contracts on the table.

Anngelle Wood: 24:10

Usia needed that towering tank and slapped it up in record time, and the inspection officials supervising the tank's construction were both outmatched and ill-equipped to spot any major problems. The USIA was in such a hurry that the first shipment of molasses arrived from Cuba before the tank could be tested for leaks. No safety checks. Now this tank had been filled nearly 30 times since its first use in 1916. Only near its capacity four of those times. That added weight stretched to an almost breaking point and contributed to this disaster. It is a bizarre story and unbelievable when you first hear it, and of great interest to anyone who has an interest in engineering disasters, like me. Hi, the discovery of an archive at Lehigh University that belonged to a consultant who testified in the trial was a treasure trove.

Anngelle Wood: 25:20

The firm that built the tank was reputable. It didn't make sense to engineers or anyone why the company who built the tank made the decisions that they did during construction. The builders, very likely under pressure to build the tank quickly, never went back and reinforced any of it. Stephen Puglio, author of Dark Tide, the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, said the tank was rushed to completion and never inspected Immediately showed signs of disrepair. He said it was leaking from day one. Every time it was filled it groaned and shuddered. In response to complaints, the company painted the steel blue tank brownish red, presumably to camouflage the leaks, the strategy ineffective. The author said the sounds of that tank moaning and groaning under pressure was common for the neighborhood. It was so stuffed with thick brown goop that it leaked from its ribbits and seams. Kids ran with buckets to collect the molasses as it dripped out. But instead of fixing it, usia ordered that tank painted brown.

Anngelle Wood: 26:42

Just days before the flood, 600,000 gallons of molasses were pumped from a ship in Boston Harbor of. Molasses were pumped from a ship in Boston Harbor, nearly filling the storage tank to capacity Within the next few days. The plan was for USIA to transfer the molasses via railroad tank to its distillery in Cambridge. That transfer never happened. The pressure proved too great for this hastily built uninspected death trap.

Anngelle Wood: 27:17

On the mid-afternoon of January 15th there was that rumbling, followed by the sound of metal ripping as the walls let loose. Anyone or anything in its path would be buried in its ooze. Unsuspecting victims were smothered or washed into the harbor. It was a violent explosion, a sudden rise in temperature, the tank being faulty and hanging on by loose rivets and metal Half-inch steel plates of the molasses tank were torn apart. The force sent those steel plates in all directions, hard enough to cut the girders of the elevated railway, a tremendous vacuum was created. Molasses was being sucked into buildings which had initially withstood the blast. The vacuum picked up a truck, dragging it across the street. An elevated train was lifted off the rails and fell onto the ties. People who were caught in its path were pummeled as the dark wave dragged things along. Others were stuck in basements that rapidly filled with the speed of rushing water.

Anngelle Wood: 28:35

Adding to the difficulty was identifying people who had been coated and suffocated by molasses. Rescuers spent days pulling through wreckage searching for anyone. Anyone who may have initially survived was unlikely to be found alive. Once rescuers could reach them. The consistency of the molasses wasn't something they were used to. No one was, and the last victim recovered was pulled from the harbor.

Anngelle Wood: 29:05

In May. Cleanup crews spent an estimated 87,000 hours cleaning streets, buildings, trains and everything else. The sticky syrup touched, and life for the survivors did go on. Horses, pedestrians, curious looky-loos, tracked the brown mess throughout the entire city. The investigation that followed showed that the tank had not been properly pressure tested. Residents knew it leaked. They sent their kids with buckets, and the heat only added to the problems. Bolts holding the bottom of the tank exploded. A huge dark wave roared, wrecking everything in its path, and the warmth of that January day in Boston added to the problems. Now, if it was a seasonably cold January day in 1919, maybe, just maybe, what happened that day wouldn't have happened, but it would have happened on another warm day in Boston.

Anngelle Wood: 30:22

The first on the scene were cadets from a training ship in the harbor 116 of them. Rescue was difficult. The thick, sticky substance held people captive. No fight could free them. The search went on for at least four days until they were certain. Everyone was accounted for 21 people and dozens of animals were killed.

Anngelle Wood: 30:49

Major property lost and dozens of animals were killed. Major property lost, wages, income. A 65-year-old woman died when her house collapsed under the wave of molasses flooding her North End home. Her children were injured in the flood and survived, though. Her son died months later at the Boston State Asylum for the Insane as a result of his injuries. I need to know more about the Boston State Asylum for the Insane. Update to follow.

Anngelle Wood: 31:21

A firefighter drowned in molasses after being trapped in debris. A railway foreman died days after the flood from internal injuries and infection. A 69-year-old blacksmith died of a fractured skull and other injuries after being crushed by debris while working next to the ruptured storage tank died of a fractured skull and other injuries after he was crushed by debris. Working in the area of the molasses tank, a 44-year-old man died of pneumonia and internal injuries after being swept into Boston Harbor and a 61-year-old teamster had no chance of escape while he was working at the city's north end paving yard adjacent to the USIA storage tank. There are more, many more.

Anngelle Wood: 32:18

It took weeks to clean the molasses from the streets of Boston. How does one remove molasses? Is it like pitch? You know the stuff on the hands of feral children when you're out running the streets and through the woods, touching all the trees all summer long. Because none of the kids in the neighborhood were being watched by anyone, just me. Boston Harbor was brown for many, many months after. We are known for dirty water, but that's supposed to be about the infamously filthy Charles River.

Anngelle Wood: 32:52

The molasses flood was huge news in Boston and made the cover of the seven daily newspapers at the time. Boston had seven daily newspapers in 1919. It knocked everything from the front pages the Prohibition Amendment which essentially passed the night of the Molossus flood, the Versailles peace talks, the talks that ended World War I. The Boston Molossus lives on in North End folklore. 105 years later, there is no trace of where the towering tank once stood. Parks and a ball field are in its place. Just a small green plaque acts as a historical marker, not unlike the Coconut Grove fire site where the residents of condos built where the club was. Don't want to think about what happened there? Well, I'll tell you 492 people died in a fire due to criminal negligence. Trapped inside because they cover doors or chain them shut, a memorial for the Coconut Grove fire is being built.

Anngelle Wood: 34:06

Not many people seem to know the bizarre story of menacing molasses in Boston. And what got me onto this bullshit? I'm always on some bullshit. Ayo Adebri. She mentioned it in a recent appearance on Seth Meyers the TV show when they were talking about Boston. He's from New Hampshire. Ayo is a Boston girl from Dorchester Sidebar, the Bear season. Three out now Haven't watched it yet. Don't tell me anything.

Anngelle Wood: 34:37

The company was quick to point the finger, naturally. Why would they want to be held responsible for their criminal negligence? They said sabotage, anarchist, terrorists. They faced years of litigation. There were 119 lawsuits as a result of the molasses flood of 1919. Oh, and the company? Quick to point their finger, naturally. Why would they want to be held responsible for their criminal negligence. And where did that finger point? To sabotage Anarchist terrorists? Those families faced years of litigation. You know, get them good and tired of the fight. An auditor was appointed by the Massachusetts Superior Court. Colonel Hugh Ogden was to oversee this very complicated case. The facts of the flood emerged from those lawsuits that swamped the city. Litigation took six years, involved some 3,000 witnesses and so many lawyers that the courtroom couldn't hold them all. At question was the nature of the disaster. Three explanations arose of the disaster. Three explanations arose An explosion inside the tank, in which case the fermentation of the molasses would be to blame.

Anngelle Wood: 36:07

A bomb, not completely implausible given the times Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, america was on high alert, fearing communist revolutionaries like the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin. Prelude to the Red Scare. In spring of 1919, a series of bombs targeting government and law enforcement officials were discovered. A package bomb had been delivered to a former US senator in Georgia. It exploded. They survived, but not without serious injury. June 1919, a bomb exploded at the home of a New York City judge, killing two people and the Palmer Raids followed a series of violent raids directed at leftist radicals and anarchists in 1919 and 1920, beginning a period of unrest known as the Red Summer Palmer Raids, named after Attorney General A Mitchell Palmer, with assistance from J Edgar Hoover. The raids and subsequent deportations proved disastrous and ignited the debate about constitutional rights and Russian bombs.

Anngelle Wood: 37:21

Is a sexy historical theory. But no, it was a structural failure of a four-year-old tank. United States industrial alcohol was liable. Following the flood, those 119 plaintiffs took up a civil lawsuit against US industrial alcohol. It is the first case in which expert witnesses were called, to a great extent Engineers, metallurgists, architects, trained professionals to speak to the technical aspects of this disaster. Those hearings resulted in a 25,000-page transcript and numerous reports to accompany damage awards over a five-and-a-half-year period. Usia was negligent and they were ordered to pay the victims of the Great Molasses Flood $1 million, the equivalent to $18 million today. The worse suffering a person experienced, the more money their family was awarded this disaster. The molaster led to new regulations for the permitting, inspection and maintenance of large storage tanks. Many years following the Great Flood, north End residents said they could still smell molasses on warm days. I love to tell these stories. I love to learn about history of Boston and Massachusetts and New England.

Anngelle Wood: 38:54

Boston has been known as Beantown for as long as I can remember. We don't use it Only when we're making fun of something, we being the greater Boston region, but it goes way, way back. Baked beans are a part of Boston dating back to the 17th century Puritans. They would cook them in a big bean pot. 17th century Puritans they would cook them in a big bean pot also still the name of the annual Boston Bean Pot hockey tournament between BC, bu, harvard and Northeastern. They cooked the beans on Saturdays, they being the Christians readying them for Sunday, the Sabbath, where they were supposed to abstain from everything. I bet they stank up the place.

Anngelle Wood: 39:40

Boston became home to the Bean Eaters. Part of the National League in the 1880s, now the MLB, they eventually became the Braves. Baseball teams had such silly names the White Stockings, I mean, come on. And the media liked the bean eaters. The name worked due to the city's long association with the legume. Boston embraced it for some time, using assorted bean symbols to promote the city. And then sometime in the 1990s a slogan surfaced you don't know beans until you come to Boston. This was to draw tourists to the city. They even made a postcard.

Anngelle Wood: 40:26

I sought out a recipe for what is being called the ultimate Boston baked beans recipe, and it comes from a pretty revered place. It's from Durgan Park, a legend in their own right. Durgan Park, the centuries-old Boston restaurant whose origins date back to the American Revolution. It is famous for many things, including its Boston baked beans. It thrived for years in Faneuil Hall a landmark for sure, with a sign at the entry that read Established before you were born. In 1827, two men who were food merchants in Faneuil Hall's marketplace, john Durgan and Eldridge Park, decided to open a restaurant for the merchants who came to buy produce and meats in the stalls. Durgan Park was born. I could go on and on about just Durgan Park. I will spare you, but it all came to an end on January 12, 2019. Another victim of the times and a little gentrification Durgan Park closed permanently. 192 years. That is a long-ass run. In closing, what sets Boston baked beans apart from any other kind of baked bean? Well, molasses, of course.

Anngelle Wood: 41:58

Thank you for listening. My name is Angela Wood. This is Crime of the Truest Kind Massachusetts and New England crime stories and regional history. Storytelling and advocacy focused. Follow the show at Crime of the Truest Kind. You can leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. There are other podcast platforms that allow you to rate or review. You can support the show by simply telling other people about it. Share it with your true crime-loving friends. Share it with your New England-based friends. Send me an email and tell me about a story that you would like me to cover. It just occurred to me that 4th of July is a few days away. I must be going now. Lock your goddamn doors, we'll be right back. We'll see you next time.