MADISONVILLE, Tenn. — The city of Madisonville's fire inspector is accused of trying to burn the same historic house -- the boyhood home of Tennessee politician Estes Kefauver -- that she spent years trying to preserve through codes enforcement.
A Monroe County grand jury indicted Sara Vanlandingham, 43, of Vonore on Wednesday on a count of arson. She was arrested Wednesday and was being held in the Monroe County Jail in lieu of a $50,000 bond.
Vanlandingham no longer works for the city.
"I would say this: It's a pretty extreme abuse of power," contractor Shawn Tawater said. "We had only been working on [restoring the home] for a few days, just trying to clean up from the prior [2006] fire trying to get it safe enough to work in."
According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Vanlandingham set a fire at the old Kefauver home on Main Street in Madisonville on Aug. 30.
RELATED: Fire damages historic Kefauver house in Madisonville; owner says restoration efforts will continue
The current owner is trying to save it after the city fought for years with the previous owner, accusing her of neglect.
Kefauver was a Democratic U.S. senator from Tennessee and a former vice presidential candidate.
TBI fire investigators looked into the fire with the Madisonville Police Department. Authorities at the time said it appeared to break out in the basement. The new owner had hired crews to renovate it.
Madisonville fire crews responded quickly to the fire and put it out.
In April, Vanlandingham provided WBIR with a lengthy timeline of efforts to apply city codes and save the house from neglect and decay. The timeline addressed the prior owner's actions.
The city, Vanlandingham wrote, hated "to lose a historic structure."
"The structure is in active collapse. This is a danger to the citizens of Madisonville and must be abated. I have hired a company that specializes in reclamation of old barns, homes, etc. This will abate the dangerous situation will giving the home a way to live on, even if in pieces," she wrote to WBIR.
The contractors working on the home said the August arson just motivates them to complete the project.
"We're not tearing it down," Josh Schmid said. "It just made the new owner and my whole crew all the more determined to get the job done."