Early Morning Fire in Hastings Closes Schools in Several Districts

A multi-department alarm was called after a fire raged through one of the oldest standing buildings in Hastings Wednesday morning.

Fire crews responded to an abandoned plant on East Mill Street around 3:30am this morning. The building had been built in the 1890s where the former Hastings Table Company. It also had several other tenants, including the the neighboring Hastings Manufacturing Company which began their business in 1915. It was later a manufacturing plant for Royal Coach trailers.

Crews were still on the scene six hours later extinguishing hot spots as many local residents looked on.

Power in the area also had to be shut off to battle the fire, shutting down several school buildings on the east side of Barry County. Hastings Area Schools, Barry County Christian School, the Barry Intermediate School District Building and Lakewood Middle School in Lake Odessa were all closed this morning due to the outage.

Four departments were still on the scene as of this afternoon. Power has been restored for several parts of the county but roughly 2,000 customers in the immediate area of Hastings and to the east of the city are still without electricity. Power was fully restored shortly after 2 p.m.

No one was injured from the fire as fire crews fought the blaze from the outside. The cause of the fire has also not been determined as the building is being considered a total loss. A private company had been looking to restore the building for apartments with funding that was pending on the project.

The City of Hastings also posted some photos following the fire's aftermath.