A 126-year-old building at Knoxville College (KC) was destroyed after a fire broke out at the vacant historically Black college on Monday evening.
Elnathan Hall was an administrative building on campus but largely remained empty for several decades after the university lost its accreditation and largely closed its doors.
The Knoxville Fire Department's investigation unit said that it is searching for the cause of the fire.
Founded by the Presbyterian Church in 1875, Knoxville College lost its accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in 1997, and the college has struggled financially, and student enrollment began to decline to the point that only 11 students were enrolled at the time of the school’s closing in May 2015.
In August, the college applied for accreditation with the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, another accrediting body. They found at least 23 compliance violations by the school such as not reporting current student enrollment numbers, leadership confusion and financial concerns, including a mounting debt of 400,000.
