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See Also:
Hastings - BUSINESSES
Hastings - RESOURCES
Hastings - CHURCHES
Hastings - SCHOOLS

Hastings

Hastings started out as a company town. A group of entrepreneurs incorporated as the Blubaker Coal Company came to Cambria County in 1887 and bought up 14,000 acres of coal lands. Curiously enough the company was really to be called Brubaker, the name of the creek now flowing through Hastings -- but a printing error changed it to Blubaker, and so it remained.

The owners of Blubaker Coal were influential men, (one was then Governor of Pennsylvania, another would later be...), and so in 1888 a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad was built into their coal lands. The terminal station was named Hastings in honor of Daniel Hartman Hastings, Governer of Pennsylvania from 1895 to 1899 and one of the founders of Blubaker Coal Company.

In 1888 and 1889 more than one hundred buildings were constructed in Hastings, including homes, stores and warehouses. Some of the businesses destroyed by the 1889 flood in Jamestown were attracted to this new, growing community. By 1890 the population exceeded 1,000 persons. In 1890 the first municipal building was constructed, known as the 'lock-up' it served for borough council meetings as well as jailhouse.

In 1908 the town was stricken by a typhoid epidemic. This spurred on some municipal improvements, such as a sewer system, completed in 1914.

Growth in the religious community did not lag behind. Rev. N. B. Smith of the Cherry Tree Circuit organized a Methodist group in 1889. In 1891 that group of Methodists, and a Swedish Lutheran group both built churches in the town, and a Catholic parish was established.