We're getting our first look inside the Loudon County Courthouse after a large fire this week devastated the historic building.
The fire on Tuesday night started in the bell tower of the 1872 structure, likely from an electrical short. Despite the efforts of more than 50 firefighters, the second floor of the building which housed the courtrooms is a total loss.
District Attorney General Russell Johnson has tried many cases inside the Loudon County courthouse. He heads the Ninth Judicial District in Tennessee, which covers Loudon County.
He was allowed inside to get a look at the damage on Thursday and took video of one of the damaged courtrooms.
It's almost unrecognizable as a court of law. You can see piles of charred wood, probably benches and parts of the wall or ceiling, scattered around a room with no roof.
"The judges bench is probably under there somewhere," you can hear Johnson say as he pans the camera toward a piles of burned debris.
Exposed wires and insulation hangs from the exposed walls and beams. The glass is gone from the windows.
Officials are still trying to figure out the extent of the damage to offices and records kept on the floors below. For the first time on Thursday, court workers who were escorted by firefighters were allowed inside to retrieve some of the records that are needed for court to proceed on Monday.
"The records we’re getting, we’re very fortunate, all those were in boxes, or filing cabinets or covered in some way," said County Mayor Buddy Bradshaw.
Other more historic records, stored in the building's basement, may not be in such good shape.
"They were either on the floor or on some shelves and of course the basement, very damp having been below water level anyway. And so it wasn’t great conditions to begin with," said Bradshaw.
Because the building was historic, it did not have a sprinkler system installed.
"None. That’s part of it being historic, you’re very limited on what you can do inside," he said.
Bradshaw vows they will rebuild, but it could take three years and several million dollars to repair.
One local historian says there's no way to know might be destroyed, because he says the county didn't keep records properly.
"Some of the records were moldy," John Cardwell said. "Some had flea infestations from previous years. You could see animal droppings."
He took photos inside the basement a year ago where files from the 1800s to early 2000s were all thrown in together.
"Every now and then you'd open up a closet and you'd find more records someplace else," he said.
With the mayor's blessing, he presented a report to the county commission last may. It warned the courthouse records storage was not up to standard.
"Well there was some money involved with it and commission they chose at this time not to fund and you know hindsight is 2020," Bradshaw said.
Cardwell, who is a major general in the Army Reserves, says the water from the firefighters washed some of the records out the door.
"My sadness has now passed. That was yesterday," he said. "Now it's going to go into a little bit of anger."
Now he's going back into the records basement to see what can be saved.
"The brick and mortar, we can replace that. But the records, your history, that's the soul of the community. That's who we are," he said.
Courthouse employees will start working in temporary locations starting on Monday.
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The building -- built in 1872 -- didn't have fire protection upgrades like sprinklers. Brubaker says the second floor is a total loss. That's where the courtroom was. Officials are still trying to figure out the extent of the damage to offices and records kept on the floors below.