The Purity Distilling Company was a chemical firm based in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
specializing in the production of
ethanol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl ...
through the
distillation process. It was a subsidiary of
United States Industrial Alcohol Company
United States Industrial Alcohol Company was an alcohol distiller in the United States. Charles Edward Adams, was chairman of the board. In 1919 they were held responsible for the Boston Molasses Disaster
The Great Molasses Flood, also known ...
who purchased the company in 1917.
Boston Molasses Disaster
In 1919, one of its largest
molasses
Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...
tanks, which was built in 1915, collapsed at 529 Commercial Street. It was a huge tank (50 ft tall, 90 ft diameter, 283 ft around) and held as much as of molasses. This led to the
Boston Molasses Disaster
The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster, was a disaster that occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
A large storage tank filled with of molasses, weighing approximat ...
in the
North End neighborhood of Boston. Twenty-one people died, and the cleanup took about 6 months to complete, after which the company was sued and forced to pay over $1 million in settlement claims.
References
External links
Finding Aid to the Albert Ladd Colby Report on the Boston Molasses Tank Explosion Special Collections, Linderman Library,
Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...
January 15: 1919, Molasses Floods Boston Streetsfrom History.com
*Jesse Kreitzer's ''The Great Boston Molasses Flood'' video
YouTube.com
Distilleries in Massachusetts
Manufacturing companies based in Boston
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