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    • A massive fire destroys a vacant building on the Knoxville College campus
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    A massive fire destroys a vacant building on the Knoxville College campus

    Online Niel Posted on

    The Knoxville Fire Department’s investigative unit is looking into the cause of a massive fire that destroyed the 126-year-old Elnathan Hall at Knoxville College.

    “I can’t say it 100 percent at this point, but there is a high probability (that the fire was human-caused),” Knoxville Fire Department Deputy Chief Mark Wilbanks told Knox News. “Until I have an investigator come back to me and say we know someone started the fire, I can’t say that, but there’s a high probability that’s the case based on what we know now.”

    Firefighters were called to the fire at the vacant campus of the historic Black College around 8:30 p.m. Nov. 4. Twelve hours later, they were still pouring water on the ruins to extinguish hot spots in the rubble of Elnathan Hall, the former administration building.

    The lack of a working water system on the unused campus initially made firefighters struggle to get water to fight the blaze, Wilbanks said.

    Firefighters had to lay the hose running up the hill to the campus, which caused pressure problems for the hose and required the use of tanker trucks to assist.

    About 40 firefighters were at the scene from 8.30pm to 1am on the night of the November 4 blaze. Four firefighters with two trucks were there early on November 5.

    The building was a total loss. After the walls partially collapsed in the fire, the Department of Municipal Services took down the rest to remove the safety hazard.

    A city digger was digging through the rubble late into the morning of November 5.

    Once the hot spots are extinguished and investigators can enter the remains of the building, more evidence of the cause of the fire can be collected and analyzed by the fire investigation unit, Wilbanks said.

    The unused building was boarded up, had no electricity or gas, and the campus was regularly patrolled to prevent criminals from entering the buildings.

    Elnathan Hall and a small side building were the only structures on campus that were damaged by the fire.

    Wilbanks said investigators would dig through the rubble, but as of 11 a.m. there was no indication that anyone may have been trapped in the building at the time of the fire.

    EARLIER: A huge fire destroys a vacant building on the Knoxville College campus

    A massive fire broke out Nov. 4 at Knoxville College, the historically black college west of downtown, destroying an iconic building. The building was unoccupied and no one was injured. Knoxville Fire Department investigators are working to determine the cause.

    The Knoxville Fire Department said in a news release that the fire broke out in the administration building, known as Elnathan Hall, and that it partially collapsed. The building is a total loss.

    “Due to the extremely high volume of the fire, crews were unable to enter the building. All firefighting efforts were made from the exterior of the structure. The limited water supply made firefighting efforts difficult,” the spokesperson said of KFD, Timothy Woods, in the release.

    Flames could be seen from as far away as the city center when the fire started at around 8.30pm

    Ladder trucks dropped water from above and pumped water from neighborhood hydrants. Crews were battling the blaze at 11:30 p.m. and expected to be on the scene through the night.

    The campus has not been used by students or faculty for years. The college has important ties to Knoxville’s civil rights history, but lost its national accreditation in 1997.

    It also lost state accreditation in 2015 after enrollment dropped to 11 students and the college racked up millions of dollars in debt. In February 2017, officials were forced to leave the last two occupied buildings on campus after the city found they were not following building codes.

    The historic private Black College, founded in 1875 by the Presbyterian Church, has faced significant challenges in recent years to resume campus operations, with the goal of being reaccredited a critical factor in the college’s future.

    Classes have not been held on campus since 2017 due to safety issues with the buildings. Several buildings on campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, although they are not currently in use.

    The college began offering online distance learning courses in 2018. Online course offerings for an Associate of Arts in General Studies degree on its website, although the most recent academic calendar listed online is for 2022-23.

    Knoxville College launched a search for a new president this summer after Leonard Adams announced his resignation from the role. College leadership said in June that a new president would be named in August, but no update on the search process or announcement of a new president has been made public.

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