The Statue of Liberty's Torch Has Been Closed Since a 1916 German Sabotage Attack

Every year, millions of tourists visit the Statue of Liberty - but none of them can climb to the torch. The reason traces back to a single night in 1916, when German saboteurs set off one of the largest explosions ever to rock American soil.

A Munitions Depot a Quarter Mile Away

Black Tom Island was a narrow strip of land in Jersey City, New Jersey, roughly a quarter mile from the Statue of Liberty. By July 1916, it held around 2 million pounds of ammunition - shells, dynamite, TNT, and artillery rounds being loaded onto ships for Britain and France. The United States was officially neutral, but American factories were supplying the Allies at enormous scale. German military intelligence wanted that stopped.

In the early hours of July 30, 1916, saboteurs believed to be working for German intelligence set fires across the depot. At 2:08 a.m., a barge packed with TNT exploded. Seconds later, the rest of the depot went up in a chain reaction.

An Earthquake on the East Coast

The force was equivalent to an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter scale. Windows shattered across lower Manhattan and in buildings 25 miles away. People woke in Philadelphia, roughly 90 miles distant, thinking an earthquake had struck. At least five people were killed, including a ten-week-old infant thrown from his crib. Total property damage reached $20 million - around $590 million today.

The Torch That Never Reopened

The Statue of Liberty stood barely a quarter mile from the blast. Shrapnel embedded itself in the copper skin on the side facing Black Tom. The shockwave pushed the torch arm against the crown and damaged the iron framework inside. Damage to the statue alone was estimated at $100,000. Workers repaired the copper exterior, but the internal structure of the raised arm was too compromised for safe public climbing.

The torch had previously held up to 12 visitors at a time, climbing via a narrow ladder through the arm. After July 30, 1916, that access ended. Not even the major restoration of 1984-1986 reopened it. Today only a small number of authorized National Park Service staff are permitted to go up. The original 1886 torch was removed during that restoration and now sits inside the Statue of Liberty Museum, where visitors can finally see it up close.

Who Did It - and Who Paid

Authorities initially dismissed foreign sabotage as the cause. American lawyers spent more than two decades building a case. By 1939, the German-American Mixed Claims Commission ruled that Germany had sponsored the attack. German agents Kurt Jahnke and Lothar Witzke were identified as the primary operatives. Germany refused to pay under Hitler, and a renegotiated settlement was not fully paid until 1979 - sixty-three years after the blast that sealed the torch.