The Associated Press
BOSTON -- A long-closed museum commemorating the Boston Tea Party caught fire Monday, producing billowing clouds of smoke.
The cause of the fire at the museum’s wooden entrance building and gift shop remained under investigation. There were no reports of injuries.
When the fire started, contruction workers were laying a deck for a walkway, said Shawn Ford, vice president of Historic Tours of America, the Key West, Fla.-based company that owns the museum.
Ford said it wasn’t immediately known whether the work triggered the fire. The building that burned didn’t contain anything of historical significance, he said.
Historic Tours of America had hoped to reopen the museum at the end of 2009.
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 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 Channel, which leads to Boston Harbor.
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