Louisiana’s Nottoway Plantation was one of the largest remaining pre-Civil War houses in the Deep South, where scores of enslaved Africans labored.

The fire that engulfed the Nottoway Plantation House on Thursday devastated the building along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Iberville Parish President Chris Daigle said on social media. Nearly a dozen fire departments from surrounding towns battled the blaze, he said. No injuries were reported.