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F. Jay Haynes papers, 1870-1922

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Haynes, F. Jay (Frank Jay), 1853-1921
Title
F. Jay Haynes papers
Dates
1870-1922 (inclusive)
bulk 1885-1916 (bulk)
Quantity
12 linear feet
Collection Number
1500
Summary
The F. Jay Haynes Papers consist of correspondence and business records related to F. Jay Haynes's photography and transportation companies. Includes negative registers 1881-1891 and account books; bills and statements 1881-1882, supply orders 1902; photograph customer orders 1886-1887; business correspondence 1876-1914; promissory notes 1879-1899. Haynes Palace Car records include negative registers 1895-1896. Also includes records relating to Yellowstone National Park business and business records from Monida and Yellowstone and Yellowstone-Western stage companies, and the Cody-Sylvan Pass Motor Company.
Repository
Montana State University Library, Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections
Montana State University-Bozeman Library
Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections
P.O. Box 173320
Bozeman, MT
59717-3320
Telephone: 4069944242
Fax: 4069942851
Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Languages
Collection materials are in English
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Biographical Note

Photographer F. Jay Haynes (1853-1921) was one of the 19th century Northwest's best-known individuals. Beginning with a studio business in Moorhead, Minnesota, on the Minnesota-Dakota Territory border, Haynes became well known for his photographs of the great bonanza farms of the 1870s; for his portraits of Indians; his views of the Northern Pacific Rail Road route; and most especially for his successful career as photographer and concessionaire in Yellowstone National Park. Haynes toured the park with his camera every year between 1881 and his death forty years later. First selling photoprints, then pictorial souvenirs, and eventually postcards, Haynes' images were probably the most widely distributed and popularly recognized of any photographer of the American West. Between 1885 and 1905 Haynes also operated a travelling photo studio in a converted Pullman railroad car. This mobility not only made Haynes Palace Studio Car one of the best known features of the Northern Pacific, but also gave him camera access to sights from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound.

Haynes' base of operations began in Moorhead, Minnesota, was moved to Fargo, North Dakota, in 1879 and in 1889 to Saint Paul, Minnesota There he maintained a central studio and photo printing operation, and operated winter offices for his Studio Car and Yellowstone Park photography and transportation concessions, the Monida and Yellowstone and later Yellowstone-Western Stage companies. The Studio Car ceased travelling after the 1904 season and Haynes severed his ties to the Northern Pacific to court ties to the Union Pacific, a working relationship that fed the growing stage line he loved. When the Secretary of the Interior cancelled the MY concession lease in September, 1913, as a result of a suit, Haynes regrouped and was able to have a new lease renegotiated by the end of the year. It was in force until the consolidation of Park concessions in 1916, the year that Haynes retired and sold his business to his son Jack Ellis Haynes. Yellowstone's "Grand Old Man" still made annual trips to the Park until heart failure claimed him in 1921.

For more complete biographical information, see Freeman Tilden, Following the Frontier with F. Jay Haynes (New York: Knopf, 1964), and F. Jay Haynes, Photographer (Helena, Montana: Montana Historical Society Press, 1981).

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Content Description

Personal materials; business correspondence and photo orders; operational papers from the Yellowstone, Saint Paul, Fargo studios and Haynes Palace Studio Car; operational papers from several stage companies. Personal information forms only a small part of the extant papers. The bulk of material is grouped around the business activities of Haynes' photography studios, especially customer order and supply correspondence, and the business records of the Monida and Yellowstone Stage Company and the Yellowstone-Western Stage Company. Small sections of material from the Yellowstone Park Stage Company and the Montana and Yellowstone Park Transfer Company are available, as well as a box of information on the short-lived Cody-Sylvan Pass Motor Company, the Park's first motorized transportation line.

Records from the various business activities of the firm F. Jay Haynes (including F. Jay Haynes and Brother) constitute about half the bulk of the collection. General business records including bills, invoices, and supplies orders are found here and are paralleled by invoice ledgers found in Collection 1501. The scope of Haynes business as a purveyor of photographs is represented only in a not-quite-statistical sample. Routine photography orders for the year roughly between October 1886 and November 1887 are the only reasonably complete files of this record type, but give a fair indication of the scope and volume of business. Researchers using the business correspondence should compare the invoices and bills found in other sections of the collection as well as in the bound books in Collection 1501. The activities of the Haynes Palace Studio Car are related in the narrative reports furnished to Haynes by his operators, and business activity through the mobile studio can be glimpsed in the "waybills" reporting the negatives taken during a given period. Other records for the car are in the Haynes papers at the Montana Historical Society.

Information from Haynes photographic concession activity in Yellowstone, primarily in the Mammoth studio, is found in the papers, though not as comprehensively as could be wished. Data in this section relates specifically to business; subsistence expenses will be found in the general business papers (except for Yellowstone Park Association bills, which are interfiled in this section). Sales accounts from the stands in the hotels and photo orders taken in the Park for later delivery are also included.

A small section of papers survive from the period of F. Jay Haynes' part-ownership in the Wylie Permanent Camping Company. Haynes had attempted to organize a lodging company similar to the permanent camps and was powerful enough that to keep him from doing so he was allowed to buy out one-third interest in the Wylie Company.

Perhaps the most colorful section of the papers relate to Haynes' most successful Yellowstone ventures, the transportation companies. He became half owner with George Wakefield of the Yellowstone Park Stage Company in 1885, moving tourists between Cinnabar and Mammoth in direct competition with the larger stage lines. Operating without a license the company was barred from the Park and folded. The Monida and Yellowstone Stage Company, organized in 1898 and incorporated in 1900, became the largest stage business in the Park partially due to its connection through the Park's west entrance to the Oregon Short Line Rail Road and consequently to the larger Union Pacific. Due to the loss of his concession over ticket pricing Haynes organized a parallel company under the name Yellowstone-Western Stage Company, recaptured the concession, and bought out the plant of the Monida and Yellowstone Stage Company. Significant topics covered in this section are the 1903 controversy with the Yellowstone Lake Boat Company, the 1912 stock suit and 1913 revocation of the Monida and Yellowstone Stage Company concession, the organization of the YW, and the dissolution of the YW and liquidation of its plant. The bound financial, passenger, and stock ledgers from the MY and YW are found in Collection 1502. Toward the end of the Yellowstone-Western Stage Company section of papers will be found a small collection of materials related to the Cody-Sylvan Pass Motor Company which operated only for the 1915 season transferring passengers between Cody, Wyoming, and Yellowstone Lake. The park's first motorized stage line, it served as the prototype for the 1916 reorganization of the transportation business.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

In series by general topic, thereunder roughly chronological, thereunder in folders by record type or topic.

Roughly half of the F. Jay Haynes papers formed sections in, or were scattered through, son Jack E. Haynes' research files during the latter's lifetime. During initial accessioning in 1978 the entire collection was refoldered and partially reordered. Since original order was irretrievably lost, an artificial order was created grouping topically similar material in two general divisions, thereunder into series: Business papers (subdivided as Photo business and Haynes Studio Palace Car), and Yellowstone National Park business papers (subdivided into Stage lines, Park photo business), together with the in situ file of F. Jay Haynes personal correspondence gleaned from the papers by Jack E. Haynes, Isabel Haynes, and accessioning staff. With isolated exceptions original folder titles and remaining filing order was destroyed. Upon processing in 1994-1995 the papers (typically single pieces and isolated files) interfiled in the Jack E. Haynes papers were rejoined to roughly six feet of other F. Jay Haynes manuscripts, which had been maintained separately.

As kept originally, F. Jay Haynes or his secretaries occasionally pasted together the corners of incoming and outgoing materials relative to one action into a single group to preserve a record of action taken. When extant, this material remains intact, filed under the date of the top item. If separated, as in most cases, the individual items are filed in their chronological place. Enclosures are kept with cover letters if the two can be matched. Present divisions are obviously artificial, and with the isolated exceptions original folder or piece titles (given in quotes) are supplied by processor, descriptive of material therein.

Other than simple sales from on-site stock, F. Jay Haynes handled most of the Yellowstone Park photo business from his headquarters in Saint Paul. Much information relative to activities stocking and operating his concerns in Yellowstone, and virtually all Park-originated mail orders, and a good bit of news and gossip, are found as he would have handled it, in his general business correspondence. Material in sections on the Haynes Palace Studio Car and photo concessions in Yellowstone National Park are generally limited to operational business records from those concerns. Due to Jack E. Haynes' long custody and use of his father's papers, users should also check the Information and Correspondence Files in Collection 1504 under specific names and topics for information Jack may have gathered.

Unfortunately the Haynes papers are badly incomplete, either through carelessness in filing historical material or the capriciousness of history. Researchers should check the several sections for any possible links between related topics, keeping in mind that topically relevant material is often discovered in unlikely places. For years where a significant amount of material has been divided into particular documents, as "Annual report, 19xx", other years with less material may have documents grouped under a broader heading, as "Finances, 19xx". A note will usually reveal the breadth of material in the latter case. Due to possible references conducted in other business, users will do well to check other sections to locate any mention of a topic, and should continue into the Jack E. Haynes papers to maintain business continuity.

Series 1 Personal Materials

Series 2 Photography Business Records

Series 3 Yellowstone Park Stage-Business Records

Acquisition Information

Donated by Isabel Haynes and the Haynes Foundation in 1977.

Custodial History

Material in the F. Jay Haynes papers originated in several businesses with operations scattered in offices diverse locations. Despite the volume of material that survives it is obvious that much material is now missing or was never kept. No series or file should be considered more than representative of Haynes' activities in that business. Much of the bulk, including the bound ledgers now in Collections 1501 and 1502, was kept in Haynes' Saint Paul studio until his death in 1921. Son Jack Ellis Haynes came to possess his father's papers in several stages: first when he assumed the Yellowstone photography concession in 1915, when he bought from his father the entire family photography businesses in 1916, then as executor of the estate upon F. Jay Haynes' death.

In 1945 Jack E. Haynes moved the Haynes business from St. Paul to Bozeman, Montana. He closed the Minnesota studio and transferred the records and negatives to the new Haynes Studios Inc. warehouse. In the early 1950s, while beginning to compile a book of general Yellowstone history, Haynes began to rearrange F. Jay Haynes's business and personal papers, interfiling much of it into his own research files and occasionally adding thereto. Jack planted most of his father's papers (primarily correspondence) and stage company documentation, as he did his own working correspondence, within his own files in alphabetical order under "Haynes, F. Jay." Jack's death in 1962 halted work on his book. With permission of Isabel Haynes, the combined research files were used by Aubrey Haines for producing a work similar to Jack's book, a two-volume narrative history completed in 1977, The Yellowstone Story.

In 1977 Jack's widow Isabel Haynes deeded the family's collected library with the business and personal records, family photographs, and research files (including the materials in this collection) through the Haynes Foundation to the Montana State University Libraries. Memorabilia and the 20,000-negative collection and records relating to it (registers, copyright documents, etc.) were given to the Montana Historical Society.

Processing Note

During the initial accessioning of the Haynes Family Collection in 1978, the collection was separated into eight collections to reflect the papers of individual members of the Haynes family and records of the companies they operated. The collections were each processed separately in the 1990s. Printed and published items such as books, maps, and pamphlets from the Haynes library have been cataloged individually within the MSU Special Collections library.

This collection was processed in 1995, and additional edits were made 2015 August 25.

Related Materials

Additional manuscripts and records relating to members of the Haynes family and Haynes family businesses have been separated into the following collections at Montana State University: Haynes Studio and Haynes Picture Shops records, 1878-1932 (1501) Yellowstone-Western Stage Company records, 1898-1916 (1502) Lily Snyder Jay Haynes papers, 1876-1928 (1503) Jack E. Haynes papers and Haynes Inc. records Haynes papers, 1915-1965 (1504) Isabel Haynes papers, 1866-1992 (1505) Lida Haynes papers, 1910-1952 (1506) Haynes Family Photographs, 1866-1969 (1507)

The Montana Historical Society also holds a portion of photographs and records from the Haynes photography business: 24,000 photographs from the Haynes Foundation Collection are cataloged individually in MSH Photograph Collection Frank Jay Haynes papers, 1876-1962 (MC 146) F. Jay Haynes Architectural Drawings collection, circa 1890-1930 (MC 86)

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Richard Saunders, 1995. Additional edits by Kim Allen Scott, 2015.
2015

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