by A long-shuttered administration building at struggling Knoxville College, a historically black institution, was destroyed by fire Monday evening, officials said.
No injuries were reported in the fire, which broke out around 8:30 p.m. ET on the Tennessee campus, whose buildings are boarded up to prevent burglaries and fires, said Mark Wilbanks, assistant chief of the Knoxville Fire Department.
‘This building is probably more than a hundred years old. It has completely collapsed and is a total loss,” Wilbanks said at the scene of the fire, according to video from NBC affiliate WBIR from Knoxville.
The cause of the fire was not known Monday evening, he said.
Knoxville College is a small historically black college and university, or HCBU, founded in 1875.
It lost its national accreditation in 1997 amid declining enrollment. The state authorized courses to resume in 2018, but they have been online, the Knoxville News Sentinel newspaper reported in July, as the college tries to regain its accreditation.
Buildings on campus are boarded up, including the former administration building that burned Monday, and there is a history of burglaries and fires on campus, Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon said at the scene.
“It’s just a sad day for our city,” Kincannon said.
Frank Shanklin, Jr., member of the Knoxville College board of trustees, told WBIR that the former administration building has not been used in 40 or 50 years.
“We will continue to fight for Knoxville College,” Shanklin said, adding that he hopes the city, the county and the people of the region will keep this in their prayers. “We are going to fight to reopen the university.”
