A messy syrup spill on Alaskan Way provided the perfect opportunity for Ivar Haglund to create a corny scene. As a tank car was being loaded, a coupling broke, and the high pressure sent thousands of gallons of sticky corn syrup onto the ground. Ivar donned his hip boots, grabbed a stack of hot cakes from his restaurant and rushed across the street in time to pose for the photographer, John M. "Hack" Miller. As the reporter noted, "What he puts on his customers' hot cakes from now on is anybody's guess."

The spill occurred at Alaskan Way and Columbia St. The Corn Products Refining Company uses the glucose for candy and syrups. The congealing mess had to be heated with steam so the clean-up crew could scoop it up with coal shovels and dump it into barrels.

Handwritten on image: Ivar Haglund.
Date photograph was published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: February 7, 1947.

Caption information source: P-I exhibit.