Aubrey Leon Haines was born in Portland, Oregon, August 30, 1914, the son of Albert S. and Doris E. Haines. After high school graduation in Seattle, he entered the College of Technology of the University of Washington College Technology in 1933 and received a B.S. in Forestry in 1938. He began work as a Yellowstone National Park park ranger in 1938. In succeeding years he left the park for military service and then for post graduate work, receiving an M.S. in Forestry at the University of Montana in 1949, followed by a year’s work toward a doctoral degree at the University of Washington. Haines returned to National Park Service employment as a supervisory park ranger at Mount Rainier National Park in 1950. In 1956 he was transferred back to Yellowstone Park as assistant park engineer. In 1960 he was promoted to the new position of park historian until his retirement in 1969. He did research on the national park idea for the National Park Service, 1970-1972, and did contract research for the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation on historic sites along the Oregon Trail, 1972-73.
Haines' publications include Osborne Russell's
In 1946 Haines married C. Wilma Smith, of White Bluff, Tennessee and they had three children, Alan, Betsy, and Calvin. Haines retired in Tucson, Arizona, where he died on September 10, 2000.
Osborne Russell was born in Hallowell, Maine, in 1814. Little is known about his parents or upbringing. At the age of sixteen he ran away to sea, only to desert his vessel in New York after a short period. For the next three years Russell was in the service of the Northwest Fur Trapping and Trading Company, operating in Wisconsin and Minnesota. By April 1834 he had made his way to Independence, Missouri, where he joined Nathaniel Wyeth's second expedition to the Rocky Mountains and the Columbia River. For the next six years Russell was both a hunter and trapper throughout the mountains of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. His journals detailed the adventurous and often lonely life of a fur trapper. Russell worked for a period with the legendary mountain man Jim Bridger, but would most often travel alone or with a small group. He was also involved in several skirmishes with the Blackfoot and helped construct Fort Idaho. Later in life, Russell moved to the Willamette Valley. There he became actively involved in local politics, eventually running for governor in 1844. Russell moved to California in 1848 following the promise of gold. For the next fifty years, Russell lived and worked between California and Oregon. He died in Placerville, California, of "miner's rheumatism" at the age of seventy-eight in 1892.
Aubrey L. Haines' first draft of his edited manuscript of Osborne Russell's journals from 1834 to 1842, was first published as
The original Osborne Russell journal is in the Western Americana Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. The bulk of Aubrey L. Haines papers are held by Special Collections and Archives, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.
Published as:
Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and The University of Montana--Missoula.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes.
[Name of document or photograph number], Aubrey Haines Manuscript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
The collection was donated to the repository's library by Aubrey Haines, at an unknown date. It was transferred to the Archives & Special Collections in January 1976.
Finding aid in the repository.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.