Knoxville College, an HBCU located in Tennessee, has been struggling to gain accreditation recently. But the university has a new problem on its hands as a vacant building on its historic campus was engulfed in flames.
Monday night the Knoxville Fire Department responded to a call about a fire on the campus. The building was Elnathan Hall, once the administration building for the HBCU.
“It‘s a sad day for the Knoxville community,” Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon told WVLT. “ Knoxville College was established not long after the Civil War to educate formerly enslaved people, and it did that job and did it well for 100-plus years. In recent years, it‘s been a harder thing. It‘s going to be sad to lose this building, and we’ll continue to work with the private board that owns this property and manages the school.
“This is not city property. We have had to go in to address fire situations many times in recent years, and it can be very dangerous,” Kincannon continued.
Ironically this isn’t the first time this building has been decimated by fire. Back in 1896, Elnathan Hall burned to the ground as a four-story dormitory before being rebuilt two years later.