Ralph B. Haines

RALPH B. HAINES is a Kansas man of wide and varied experience in many lines, and is now devoting his time chiefly to his duties as president of the State Bank of Preston.

He came to Kansas when a boy and was born at Anamosa, Iowa, December 7, 1865. This branch of the Haines family is of Welsh descent, and settled at an early date in Maryland. His father, Philip Haines, was born in that state in 1813 and lived there until the time of the Civil war. He was a strong Union man, and to be a Union man in Maryland at the outbreak of the war was equivalent to occupying a position of personal danger. He served as a minute man in a Maryland organization of Union troops for ninety days, but was compelled to leave the state, since his life was threatened if he remained, and, coming west, he settled at Anamosa, Iowa, and bought and operated a stone quarry there for some years.

In 1876 Philip Haines moved to Kansas, stopped a year at Wichita, and in the spring of 1877 moved to Pratt County and homesteaded a quarter section of land. That homestead was the scene of his subsequent activities, but he died in 1892, during a visit to Iowa. In politics he was a republican first, and later, joined the populist party. When Pratt County was first organized he served as register of deeds. He was a member of the Universalist Church and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Philip Haines married Mary Miles, who was born in Maryland in 1821 and died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1902. She was the mother of three children: James M., who died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1914, and was a painter by trade; Eliza, who died at Springville, Iowa, wife of Dr. Gustav North, a dentist now practicing at Cedar Rapids; and Ralph B.

Ralph B. Haines began his schooling in Iowa and subsequently attended the rural schools of Pratt County and Stryker's Normal College at Great Bend. To the age of twenty-six he lived at home and helped his father on the farm. When he left home he spent twenty months on a ranch near Denver, Colorado, then farmed two years at Haynesville, Kansas, and when the Cherokee Strip was opened in Oklahoma in 1903 he took part in the run for a claim and acquired a homestead in Woods County. He was busied with its development for many years, and in 1900 located at Preston, Kansas, farming for one year near town, and since then has made his home in the village. For four years he was with the Potter Lumber and Implement Company and in the meantime, in January, 1903, entered the State Bank of Preston as assistant cashier. Later he was made cashier, and since 1914 has been president of this institution, which is capitalized at $15,000 and has a surplus of $3,600. The bank, located on Main Street, was organized in April, 1902, by M. H. and G. B. Potter, and has always been operated under a state charter. The other officers are H. J. Moeler, vice president, and L. W. Hays, cashier.

Mr. Haines is also a stockholder in the Preston Co-operative Grain Company and owns a farm of 160 acres in Pratt County and a modern home in town. While in Oklahoma he served as county commissioner of Woods County. He is a democrat, is a member and secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is past master of Rob Morris Lodge No. 332, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Preston, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, being affiliated with Wichita Consistory No. 2. He also belongs to Preston Camp, Modern Woodmen of America.

February 10, 1895, at Preston, Mr. Haines married Miss Addie Rea daughter of John and Lovina (Prichard) Rea, who live at Preston. Her father is a retired farmer and came to Pratt County, Kansas, in 1887. Mr. and Mrs. Haines have three children: Lovina, wife of Chester Long, a farmer at Preston; Mary, a sophomore in the local high school; and Nellie, also a pupil in school.

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