Hastings College is a private, co-educational, residential liberal arts college. It was founded in 1882. Nine years earlier, a small group of forward-looking civic leaders, anticipating the need for a college in a growing community, had met in one of the then seven buildings of the village of Hastings to discuss the idea. At that time Hastings was only two years old and still a year away from incorporation as a town.

Of strong religious beliefs, these early settlers proposed the establishment of a Christian liberal arts college, much in the tradition of the liberal arts colleges in the East, from which some of Hastings’ early settlers had come. Their initial proposal, enthusiastically approved by the community, was presented to the Kearney Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in August 1873.

Nine years later, on September 13, 1882, Hastings College greeted its first class of 44 students on the second story of the old Post Office building on the northeast corner of First Street and Hastings Avenue, where classes were held for two years until construction of McCormick Hall, the first building on the campus, was completed. There were five professors—three full-time and two part-time.

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