A fire broke out at a historic plantation museum in Louisiana's Iberville Parish on May 15, and full extent of damage is unclear. The Iberville Parish Government confirmed the blaze in a statement online which reads in part, "The loss of Nottoway is not just a loss for Iberville Parish, but for the entire state of Louisiana"

Dozens of fire response vehicles, ambulances and civilian cars were lined along La. 1, as smoke blown by the wind flew into the sky in gray billows from cracks in the plantation house's roof.

Flames ripped through the Nottoway Plantation House Thursday evening, destroying the largest standing antebellum mansion in the United States. The 160-year-old structure in Iberville Parish is now a charred shell of what once stood as both a major tourist destination and a complicated symbol of the South’s past.