Forest H. Haines, owner and proprietor of the leading department store of El Dorado and one of Butler county's most progressive merchants, is a native of Missouri. He was born in St. Joseph, March 6, 1877, and is a son of H. C. and Josephine (Hartzell) Haines, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Pennsylvania. The father is a veteran of the Civil war and has been in the mercantile business all his life and is now a member of the mercantile firm of H. C. and C. S. Haines of Sabetha, Kans. He retired from active participation in the business at the age of fifty, and since then has spent most of his time in traveling.

Forest H. Haines is one of a family of eight children, as follows: Belle, deceased; Charles S., merchant, Sabetha; Mame, married A. E. Sloesson, banker, Newkirk, Okla.; Grace, married Joseph A. Crantz, iron manufacturer, Canal Dover, Ohio; Harvey L., proprietor of a department store, Maryville, Mo.; Forest H., subject of this sketch; Annie, married Walter C. Hardesty, manufacturer, New Philadelphia, Ohio: and Ethel, married Albert F. Young, proprietor of a department store, Lake City, Minn. Forest H. Haines was reared in Sabetha, Kans. and was educated in the public schools, and began his mercantile career February 9, 1894, at the age of seventeen, at which time he entered his father's store at Sabetha as a clerk. He remained in that capacity until 1900 when he and his brother, Harvey L., came to El Dorado and opened up a new store under the firm name and style of Haines Brothers. This partnership continued until 1912 when Forest H. became the sole proprietor and Harvey L., engaged in a similar enterprise at Maryville, Mo., where he is now located.

The business has had a constant and substantial growth and its many modern features places the business in a class with the modern department stores to be found in the larger cities, and the general appearance of this great mercantile institution bears conclusive testimony of the enterprise and progressiveness of Mr. Haines. In 1914, he saw the necessity of meeting the demand for a special line of goods and promptly added an annex to the general department store, where he carries a popular priced line of goods. This innovation has proved popular with the public and has fully met with the patronage which Mr. Haines anticipated. The Haines department store is located, perhaps, at the best business point in El Dorado, on the east side of Main street, near the center of the block between Central and Fourth avenues. The store has a frontage of seventy feet and is a substantial

two-story brick building, ninety-five feet deep, which building he owns. There are about fifteen employees in the store and the place usually presents a busy appearance.

Mr. Haines was united in marriage June 1, 1905, to Miss Mary, daughter of T. C. Ellett, president of the Ellett-Kandall Shoe Company, Kansas City, Mo. To Mr. and Mrs. Haines has been born one child, Irene, now a student in the El Dorado schools. Mr. Haines is a York Rite Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine, and was the youngest man to become a member of the Shrine at the time he joined.

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