Dr. Grant Hastings saved multiple lives and delivered hundreds more into the world during his tenure at Lakin. His arrival here was announced in December 1921 when he purchased the medical library, office furniture, fixtures and instruments that belonged to Dr. George C.W. Richards. At the time, Hastings was in practice in Garden City with Dr. Sanford Bailey. His Lakin office, which he shared with dentist L.W. Hopkins, was over the Kearny County Bank on the southwest corner of Waterman and Main. A graduate of the University of Kansas Medical School, Dr. Hastings had built up a reputation as a careful and competent physician and came to town very highly recommended.
A month later, county commissioners appointed Hastings as county physician of Kearny County. The good doctor who still lived in Garden City and retained an office there was also Finney County’s appointed physician and health officer. Hastings was believed to be the first to hold the office of county physician in two counties at the same time. “The work in the two counties will keep him on the jump but the doctor is young and active and likes to work,” reported the Garden City Herald, “he could if necessary take one or two more.”
Dr. and Mrs. Hastings moved to Lakin in June of 1922, and in the summer of 1926, work was underway on Dr. Hastings’ new building just to the east of the then Lakin State Bank on East Waterman Avenue. The Independent announced that the brick structure was conveniently located and “will be quite an improvement on Waterman.” The doctor made his office on the first floor in the west wing. The Chamber of Commerce rented the upper floor for a club room, and the other rooms were rented out as the dental office of Dr. P.L. Woods and a barber shop. A radio was installed upstairs in the club room which had plenty of windows for light and ventilation.
In October of 1927, the Independent announced that the Chamber of Commerce had consented to using only half of the second floor, and the other half had been converted to a hospital as Dr. Hastings had found that driving to Garden City to treat his patients was very inconvenient. There were four rooms, each with an outside window and steam heat. “With the assistance of Dr. Woods in surgical operations and Mrs. Lavina Shinkle, a trained nurse, many cases formerly taken to the hospitals in Garden City can now be conveniently taken care of. The doctor has been particularly successful in surgical work, and all minor operations will be given attention here as well as many of the major operations. All of which tends to show that you don’t have to go elsewhere to be sick; you can have a first class illness right here in Lakin.” The Chamber of Commerce decided to give up their club room in the Hastings building in January 1928, enabling the number of hospital beds to increase to eight.
Dr. Hastings began dividing his time between Lakin and Garden City in January of 1941 when Dr. Herman Sartorius of Garden City was called to active army duty. In October that year, Hastings located permanently to Garden City. His Lakin office was taken over by Dr. E.M. Ireland. Other doctors to utilize the Hastings building included Rudolph Sabo, Fred Dietrick, and Gordon McAfee. The hospital continued to be used until the Kearny County Hospital (now the building that houses the Kearny County Senior Center) was opened in 1952. Although he no longer lived here, Dr. Hastings actively worked with the hospital committee to help secure funding for the new hospital.
Dr. Hastings retired in 1965 and died in December of 1967 at the age of 78 in Garden City. Among his pallbearers were his Kearny County friends B.C. Nash, Edd Murray and Ralph Hutton. A World War I veteran, he served as a medical adviser on the first Kearny County draft board and was active in several organizations including the Lakin Masonic Lodge, president of the Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the festivities for the dedication of the Kearny County Court House in 1939. Dr. Grant Hastings and his wife, Agnes, had three daughters: Jane, and her twin sisters, Ann and Ellen.
SOURCES: Archives of the Lakin Independent, Garden City Herald and Garden City Telegram; Museum archives; History of Kearny Co. Vols. I & II; and Ancestry.com.