Logan County officials first received word of the blaze just before 2 p.m. Sunday.
``When we arrived it was fully involved with heavy black smoke and flames coming out of all the eaves. It appeared to have been burning for quite a while,'' said Lincoln Fire Chief Bucky Warsham.
Some firefighters suffered minor injuries, but no one else was hurt.
``You could see flames coming out the front of the building at first. A little while later you could hear the glass start popping out,'' said Larry Martincic, who lives nearby and called 911 to report the fire.
It took firefighters more than two hours to get the blaze under control, and volunteers provided food and drinks for them and for rescue workers.
Among the volunteers was former Lincoln College employee Kelli Frost.
``There's a lot of memories in that building, a lot of memories,'' Frost said. ``We're just trying to do what we can.''
The cause of the fire was still under investigation Monday, fire inspector Jim Davis said.
To help clean up after the fire, special units were called in to remove heavy items from the building such as propane tanks and cars. Warsham said about five cars were in the building at the time of the fire and that all of them were destroyed.
