Nginx server trying to password protect dir gives 403 Forbidden

Question

I did sudo htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/.htpasswd user_a to create my user and pass

Then I added this to my site block location

location ^~ /administration {
    auth_basic "Restricted";
    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd;
    index  index.html index.htm;
}

But when I visit url.com/administration and I enter correct username/pass it gives me a 403 Forbidden page