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Posted on 05/17/2025 1:59:45 AM PDT by Libloather
The largest pre-Civil War mansion in all of the American South burned to the ground as a devastating fire ripped through the historic wooden structure built nearly 200 years ago.
Flames broke out at Nottoway Plantation in White Castle, Louisiana, just after 2 p.m. Thursday, drawing engines from 10 local fire departments who were helpless to stop the fire from burning up all 53,000 square feet of the iconic building.
Officials reported no injuries, though one Louisiana fire marshal said it was “the biggest fire” they’d seen in their entire career, ABC reported.
Local politicians in the Pelican State’s Iberville Parish lamented the unrecoverable loss of what was a beacon of a difficult chapter of American history.
“Nottoway was not only the largest remaining antebellum mansion in the South but also a symbol of both the grandeur and deep complexities of our region’s past,” Iberville Parish President Chris Daigle said in a statement posted to Facebook.
“While its early history is undeniably tied to a time of great injustice, over the last several decades it evolved into a place of reflection, education, and dialogue,” Daigle added.
Nottoway was a sugar plantation operated and constructed by slave labor on behalf of John Hampden Randolph in 1859 for roughly $80,000 — equivalent to roughly $3 million in 2025.
The home became a museum in the 1980s opening its grand doors, 165 rooms and acre-plus of floorspace to visitors from around the world to engage in the challenging history embedded in its floorboards.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Arson?
The now lost massive plantation house was made possible by sugar cultivation. Like cotton, sugar was a high value crop in the antebellum South. Both required the brutal heavy labor that slavery facilitated.
I don't trust modern history teachers to deliver a truthful comprehension of what man has done.
That’s a shame. It was a beautiful house.
That was my first thought. Democrats hate history and think destroying it will somehow make their lives better. Mental illness? I vote “yes”.
Very well said.
Damn! DemonicRATS will go to no ends to erase their slave
Mongering past.
A tragic loss!
Glad I was able to spend some quality time there!
I’d bet on it.
It wuz probably one o’ them dang Yankee sojers who dun it.
Wouldn’t surprise me
African lightning?
Nottoway Plantation sold to New Orleans hotel owner for $3.1M, plus other valuable considerations
From 2024, sold again...
Restored Nottoway Plantation Offers New Attractions
So the property went from an Australian billionaire to a local hotelier to a local lawyer...
Looks like the property is still on the National Register of Historic Places...
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/73973710
If the fire was the result of a criminal act, wonder if that will allow for some federal bigfeet using 18 U.S.C. § 844(i)...
Bernie bot?
Thanks for posting.
A few years ago, the wife and I took a long weekend and toured a number of plantations and antebellum homes - I was particularly interested in the engineering of putting in upside down pyramid based into the muck to v=create a foundation that could shift w/o causing damage to the structure...also noted the slave shacks that a number still had preserved.
Insurance fire.
CC
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