BATON ROUGE - The home of a former charter school along North Street in Baton Rouge was destroyed Tuesday night in an early morning fire.

The currently vacant building was at one point the home of Nicholson Elementary School, a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"Nicholson was pretty much like a community for the kids," former Nicholson Elementary School student Chris Alexander said. "Back then, when we was growing up, a lot of kids was poor, and the teachers and everybody took care of us, and it was like a family."

Alexander lives not too far from the elementary school that he attended from 1st to 6th grade.

"It's heartbreaking, and it's tearful, cause I talked to my brother this morning. He went to school there also, and he was kind of heartbroken, and some of my friends also," Alexander said. "We pretty much grew up there. We finished school there. We played basketball there."

And now, the building is damaged significantly, as the Baton Rouge Fire Department worked through the early morning hours to extinguish the fire.

"For this size fire, we bring in a lot of resources. This was actually a second alarm assignment for the Baton Rouge Fire Department. Brought in a little over 30 apparatus, and a little over 83 to 84 personnel responded to this event this morning," Baton Rouge Fire Chief Michael Kimble said.

Officials say crews were able to get the fire under control around 4:45 a.m., and Alexander says he hopes that someday the building will be brought back to life.

"I'd like to see them put some money into it, bring it back and rebuild it for the community and let the kids start going back to the school, cause they need it," Alexander said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.