Don Hastings

Donald Ray Hastings, born in 1936 in Palestine, was the son of William Benjamin and Grace (Jenkins) Hastings. He attended local schools and graduated from Palestine High School in 1954. After the local theater screened The Iron Mistress in 1953, students in the high school's industrial arts classes used their metalworking skills to build replica Bowie knives, and for Hastings it marked the beginning of a lifelong pursuit of learning and teaching the ancient craft of knife making. He first made knives by the stock removal method, using files and grinders to shape a flat piece of steel, and displayed his work at arts and crafts festivals around Texas. In 1972, he met Bill Moran, president of the Knifemakers' Guild, whose Damascus steel knives used a centuries-old process with a blacksmith's forge, hammer, and anvil that only a few people in the world then practiced. Hastings became a master of the Damascus technique and mentored other craftsmen. In 1976, Moran, Hastings, and others formed the American Bladesmith Society to award members the titles of journeyman and mastersmith, and Hastings achieved mastersmith level in 1981. He helped form a bladesmithing school in Washington, Arkansas, where James Black developed the Bowie knife in the 1820s, and in 1980 he opened a knifemaking shop on Avenue A in Palestine. Hastings died in 1986, and his shop continued afterward as Hastings-Parrish Knife Works. In 1996, Black, Bowie, and Hastings were inducted in the first class of the American Bladesmith Society Hall of Fame. Today, Hastings knives are admired among collectors, and more than 1,500 American Bladesmith Society members continue to make knives by historic techniques.

Palestine, Texas · United States