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A walkable guide to the city's fire and disaster history
Celebrated and much imitated, the Freedom Trail winds through Boston marking highlights of the American Revolution, ranging from Paul Revere's home to the Battle of Bunker Hill. An unmarked trail, more somber but no less significant, also winds through Boston, a city that has seen more than its share of major fires and disasters.
Remarkably, the sites of many of these calamities- from the fastmoving inferno at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in 1942 to the bizarre and deadly molasses flood in 1919 to the 1872 conflagration that devastated Boston's downtown- are within walking distance of each other, creating a "Boston fire trail" that is easily accessed on foot by participants at this year's NFPA Convention + Expo. You can also use the subway to visit individual destinations or sections of the trail. However you get there, a stroll along this historic trail offers a glimpse of tragedies and triumphs that have had repercussions for public safety issues around the country.
1 Battle of Bunker Hill
Bunker Hill Monument + museum, Charlestown
Boston's fire trail begins at the terminus of the Freedom Trail in the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown, at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill of June 17, 1775. This was the first major armed conflict in what would become the Revolutionary War; significantly, the British used fire as a military tool to quell popular resistance. During the battle, British General William Howe ordered his naval forces to aim heated shot into Charlestown, setting fire to nearly 400 homes and devastating the town. The destruction fueled anger at the British and helped to bring on full-scale revolt.
T Subway: Orange line to Community College
The Bunker Hill ment in Charlestown. In 1775, the town evastated by fire, the result of shelling e British.
2 The Molasses Flood
529 Commercial St., North End
Just over the North Washington Street Bridge from Charlestown is Boston's North End and the site of one of the country's strangest disasters. In 1915, developers built a 50-foot-tall (15-meter-tall) tank on Commercial Street to hold molasses, used to produce rum and industrial alcohol, a critical component of high explosives and smokeless powder. The tank was poorly constructed and...