A three-alarm fire broke out early Sunday at a building in Butler County with an important connection to WWII.

At least 10 fire departments were dispatched to the former Bantam Jeep building at 1:42 a.m. Sunday, according to Butler County Dispatch.

The crews — from Butler city and township, Unionville, Slippery Rock and more — cleared out around 6 a.m. With the time change occurring at 2 a.m., that amounts to nearly four hours battling the blaze.

The building, on Bantam Avenue, was once home to the American Bantam car company, a small operation that, in 1940, answered a call from the Army as the U.S. inched closer to entering the war: Develop a vehicle that could replace the reliance on horses.

The deadline given, according to the Heinz History Center, was just 49 days.

“Bantam was th

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