Knoxville College: A History Marked by Fires and Resilience
The story of Knoxville College, a historically Black college (HBCU) founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America, is one of both triumph and tribulation. The institution has faced numerous challenges, including financial difficulties, declining enrollment, and the loss of its national accreditation in 1997. Among the most visible and devastating of these challenges have been the fires that have plagued the campus throughout its history, most recently with the destruction of the historic Elnathan Hall in November. Despite these setbacks, the college has demonstrated remarkable resilience, maintaining a proud legacy of service and education within the Black community.
The Devastating Fire at Elnathan Hall
On the night of November, a fire engulfed Elnathan Hall, one of the oldest remaining structures on the Knoxville College campus. Built in 1898, Elnathan Hall had served as an administration building, women’s dormitory, and classroom facility throughout its history. The over 100 years old building was deemed a total loss after the collapse. No injuries were reported.
The Knoxville Fire Department (KFD) responded to the scene, but firefighters were hampered by the lack of a functional water system on the vacant campus. They had to run hoses uphill to the fire, which caused water pressure problems and required the assistance of tanker trucks. The fire was so large that crews couldn't enter the building and had to battle the flames from the exterior. After walls partially collapsed in the fire, the City Service Department knocked down the rest to prevent the remaining walls from falling over on first responders.
As of November 5, fire investigators suggested the fire was intentionally set at its source. They specified that the “set” could be because of arson but also could have been due to cooking. Wilbanks explained, “Nothing new as far as any suspects or anything like that. We do believe it was a set fire. We don’t have any leads at this time, but the investigators were told a few people’s names.
The destruction of Elnathan Hall was a significant blow to the college, which has been struggling to regain accreditation and find a new president. Dasha Lundy, a former chief operating officer and vice president of Knoxville College, criticized current leadership at the school. Lundy said, "Last night's fire at Elnathan Hall has ignited a call to honor Knoxville College's legacy and purpose. Elnathan, meaning 'Gift from God,' stands as a testament to our mission and heritage. The historic building had not been occupied for 40+ years. Big thanks to our Knoxville Firefighters for responding so quickly and making sure the fire did not spread. Thankfully it appears nobody was hurt."
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A History of Fires at Knoxville College
The recent fire at Elnathan Hall was not an isolated incident. The college has a history of fires, including one that destroyed the original Elnathan Hall in 1896. The Knoxville Sentinel reported on Dec. 15, 1896, that the earlier Elnathan Hall was left “a mass of smoking ruins”. The building was then serving as a girls’ dormitory for the college. Efforts to extinguish the 1896 blaze also were hampered by firefighters’ difficulty getting enough water, according to news reports.
KFD is familiar with putting out fires on the campus that has sat mostly unused and in disrepair for a decade, plagued by funding and accreditation issues. Several of the buildings have been condemned by the city and boarded up. The number of fires dealt with in that time are more than can be counted on both hands twice. A trash bin fire believed to have been started by a trespasser occurred on an upper floor of another building in October.
Early History and Growth
Knoxville College is rooted in a mission school established in Knoxville in 1864 by R. J. In the 1870s, the church's Freedmen's Mission, which had established mission schools for freed slaves across the South, decided to refocus its efforts on building a larger, better-equipped school in Knoxville, in part due to stiff competition from other denominations in Nashville. In 1875, the church sold its East Knoxville property and purchased its current property, which at the time consisted of a hill that had been occupied by a Confederate battery during the Civil War.
The school's first building, McKee Hall, named for O.S. McKee, was completed in 1876, and the school opened in December of that year. Former governor William G. Brownlow and gubernatorial candidate William F. John Schouller McCulloch was named the school's first principal and Eliza B. Wallace was named the school's principal of female students. The new school was primarily a normal school, which trained teachers, but also operated an academy for the education of local children. In 1901, Knoxville College finally received a charter from the State of Tennessee.
Six years later, the school established the Eliza B. Wallace Hospital, which served a dual purpose of training nurses and tending to the health needs of the local black community. During World War I, Knoxville College students helped raise money for liberty bonds and the Red Cross. In the aftermath of the Riot of 1919, one of the city's worst racial episodes, the school's administration (comprising black and white members) staunchly defended the city's African American community, and praised its students' restraint. In 1925, Knoxville College students staged a month-long boycott of classes to protest the school's strict behavioral code, culminating in an all-night negotiating session between student leaders and the school's dean, Herbert Telford.
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When first opened, it was not an exclusively Black college until segregation was enforced by our state legislature in 1901 thanks to the disaster of Plessy v. Ferguson.
The Era of Decline
Beginning in the 1970s, Knoxville College began to struggle financially, leading to a gradual decline. In 1997, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools withdrew Knoxville College's accreditation; enrollment dropped precipitously and the school's financial situation became dire. As enrollment plummeted, the school's debt skyrocketed and it was soon unable to pay its faculty or electric bills. Throughout the rest of the 1990s, as enrollment plummeted, most campus buildings were shuttered and abandoned, with most degree programs being discontinued. Following Hatton's removal, the school's alumni association embarked on an aggressive fundraising campaign in 2006 and 2007 to save the college and return it to solvency.
In January 2010, the school hired Horace A. Judson as interim president. However, Judson soon left and the college continued to struggle. On June 9, 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency seized control of the long-shuttered A.K. Stewart Science Hall to conduct an emergency clean-up of toxic chemicals that the college had improperly stored in laboratories. In early 2015 state accreditation for the college was withdrawn, further complicating the college's already strained finances. In April 2015, the school announced it was suspending classes for the Fall 2015 term in hopes of reorganizing. In May 2016, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation recommended the college become a state Superfund site due to ongoing contamination concerns from the Stewart Science Hall. In September 2016, the City of Knoxville demanded that Knoxville College make repairs to fourteen of its buildings within 90 days or face condemnation. City crews subsequently boarded up the buildings.
Classes have not been held on the campus since 2017 due to safety concerns about the buildings. The college began offering online distance-learning classes in 2018.
Campus Overview
Knoxville College is situated on a 17-building, 39-acre (16 ha) campus, located atop a hill overlooking the Mechanicsville neighborhood, just northwest of Knoxville's downtown area. Along with administration and classroom buildings, the campus includes a performing arts center, a gymnasium, a library, a chapel, and a student center.
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Several buildings on the campus have historical significance:
- McKee Hall: The oldest building on campus, originally built in 1876, largely rebuilt in 1895 following a fire. The building is named for O.S. McKee who had established the first school for African-American children in Nashville in 1862.
- The President's House: Built in the late 1880s.
- Wallace Hall: Built in 1890 as an orphanage and named for Eliza B.
- McMillan Chapel: Built in 1913, designed by Knoxville College alumnus, William Thomas Jones. Along with church services, the chapel served as the campus's primary performance venue.
Elnathan Hall was one of eight buildings on the campus included in the Knoxville College Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The College's Mission and Recent Efforts
Knoxville College lost its Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation in 1997 due to financial difficulties and a consistently declining enrollment. Currently, the college offers all of its courses online. As of August, Knoxville College is still trying to regain its accreditation and is also searching for a new president of the HBCU.
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 publicly. The college announced in a newsletter in August that it had applied to the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools for reaccreditation, a step seen as critical to the college's future. According to records, TRACS has provided the school with a list of 23 compliance violations that must be addressed in order to meet Institutional Eligibility Requirements (IERs) for accreditation. “Our application has been turned in but this is going to be a long process,” he said.
Following submission of application, the college will embark on a self-assessment, evaluating its organizational structure, effectiveness, and areas for potential growth. If the institution meets the necessary standards, representatives appear before the Accreditation Commission, which may grant candidacy status.
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