Alpha and stink

Not as famous or as deadly as the North End's Molasses Flood, Dorchester once suffered an odoriferous smell that no one has written a book about. The 'Mothball Spill' on Alpha Road in 1946 still sticks in the noses of long-time residents.

With WWII going on, a lot of Dorchester's young husbands were called to be away from home for an extended period. Their clothes needed to be stored and protected from predatory moth larvae. Mike Flannagan got the idea to undercut the big moth ball companies by buying generic mothballs and selling them under his own, local label at corner grocers in the neighborhood. He purchased pallet loads of generic, white paper bags and had then custom printed with his brand name at a shop in Adams Village. The shop did a nice job, using red ink that silhouetted the lettering: "Flannagan's Moth-o-Cide" with a picture of a moth with X's for eyes.

Mr. Flannagan travelled to Chelsea, Mass. to the Permagum Mothball Dispensary to pick up his first wholesale shipment. Permagum is a name well respected in mothball circles though the company has since shut down. Mike Flannagan had arranged to buy loose mothballs to package later in his garage on Alpha Road for later distribution. He was neither a manufacturer or a trucker, he was an entrepreneur. He rented a delivery truck and packed the back full of loose mothballs using a snow shovel.

He forgot to lock the back doors of his truck.

Alpha Road is a steep street just east of Codman Square. The pressure against the doors became too much and the latch gave. Two tons of mothballs spilled down between the gutters of Alpha Road and they skittered their way down storm drains and into exposed niches. Some of them reached Dorchester Bay. The neighborhood was effectively fumigated and even today this part of Dorchester is known for its lack of moths, cockroaches and other vermin who have developed an aversion to to the stink of naphthalene.