The visitor ban on the Statue of Liberty‘s torch began after a large (and loud) July 30, 1916, explosion on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor, said NBC News. “It was a terrific explosion — the worst that had ever happened in New York,” said Kenneth Jackson, a history professor at Columbia University, said to the broadcast station. The detonation broke glass windows miles away in Manhattan and killed seven people. It also closed the torch area off, as a commemorative marker notes on the site.

Black Tom, according to History, was a small island that became a World War I epicenter for munitions and gunpowder assembly and shipping. The United States, at the time, had not yet entered the fray but did sell the arms, mostly to allies like Britain, France, and Russia. The massive explosion occurred at 2:08 in the morning and was repeated by a second one a half an hour later. Some $20 million ($500 million today) of property experienced damage. After years of investigations, it was determined that Germans had sabotaged the site. Lawyers won a 1939 international tribunal case against Germany but Hitler refused to fund the settlement. The case’s deal was renegotiated in the early ’50s and claimants received compensation, with the last payment made in 1979.

As for the torch, it never reopened. If you want to see the view from it though, you can try the Statue of Liberty’s webcam.