A fire destroyed a century-old building on the unused campus of a historically Black college in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Monday evening. Images released by the local fire department showed smoke and flames billowing from a gutted structure whose roof was almost entirely gone.
Classes have not been held on the campus of the school, Knoxville College, since 2015, though it continues to offer some online classes. Mark Wilbanks, a spokesman for the Knoxville Fire Department, told the local television station WBIR that no injuries had been reported and that there was no indication that anyone had been in the building. The cause of the fire was unknown, he added.
The college, which lost its national accreditation in 1997, was east Tennessee’s only historically Black college or university.
“It’s a sad day for Knoxville,” the city’s mayor, Indya Kincannon, told reporters on Monday night. She called the college “a pillar of the higher education community for Black people in Knoxville and beyond.”
Firefighters said there was a “heavy fire” when they arrived at the campus, the Knoxville Fire Department said on social media around 8:30 p.m. local time. Mr. Wilbanks said that fire crews were expected to work through the night.
Knoxville College, which has 18 buildings on 58 acres, was founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America. When it lost its national accreditation, students were no longer eligible for financial aid.
In 2015, when the college said it was suspending classes, it had only 11 students, WBIR reported at the time.
School officials hoped to resume classes on campus the following year, but they could not after city officials ordered repairs to some buildings because of safety concerns. Online-only classes began in 2018.
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