BOSTON (AP) — A long-closed museum commemorating the Boston Tea Party caught fire this week, producing billowing clouds of smoke.
The cause of the fire at the museum’s wooden entrance building and gift shop remained under investigation Monday. No injuries were reported.
When the fire started, construction workers were laying a deck for a walkway, said Shawn P. Ford, vice president of Historic Tours of America, the Key West, Fla.-based company that owns the museum. Mr. Ford said it wasn’t known whether the work triggered the fire.
The building that burned contained nothing of historical significance, he said. Historic Tours of America had hoped to reopen the museum at the end of next year.
The Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum was established in 1973, but closed after a fire in 2001. The museum commemorates Dec. 16, 1773, when Colonists disguised as Mohawk American Indians dumped crates of British tea into the harbor to protest a tax imposed by the Colonial government.
The museum is built on pilings next to the Congress Street Bridge in Boston’s Fort Point Cannel, which leads to Boston Harbor.
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