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.

The historic Nottoway Resort, Louisiana's largest antebellum mansion, was destroyed by fire Thursday. Ten fire departments fought the blaze at the 166-year-old landmark.

Flames ripped through a massive mansion in Louisiana, destroying much of the historic structure that was used as a plantation house when it was completed in 1859, authorities said. The fire that engulfed the Nottoway Plantation House on Thursday devastated the building along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans,