34 Facts About Mahlon Haines

Mahlon Nathaniel Haines was an American businessman and philanthropist in York, Pennsylvania.

Mahlon Haines was born in Old Washington, Ohio on March 5,1875.

The family moved to Washington, DC, in 1882 and lived above a store she owned on 11th Street SE; it was there that Mahlon Haines worked for much of his early life.

The store's profits helped pay for his education and Mahlon Haines enrolled at Maryland Agricultural College in 1892.

Mahlon Haines left college in 1894 to begin his adult life.

Mahlon Haines later summarized his status then as "single, penniless and alone".

Mahlon Haines reportedly sold his engagement ring, bought ten pairs of shoes, and sold them at a farmers market.

Mahlon Haines built another four-story Haines Building at 101 East Market Street in 1922 and sold it in 1954 after having donated the shoe store space to organizations such as the Boy Scouts and Bundles for Britain; as of April 2017, the building was being renovated for business use with ten new apartments on the upper floors.

Mahlon Haines had the five-story building on West Philadelphia Street built in 1925 as a 45-room hotel; he converted it to an apartment building in 1940 and it endures as of 2016 with its "Mahlon Haines" name across the original main entrance threshold.

In 1922, Haines ran as the Republican candidate from Pennsylvania's 22nd District to the US House of Representatives, though he lost to Democratic challenger Samuel F Glatfelter.

One month before his death, Mahlon Haines attended a September 1962 campaign rally in Hershey for Republican gubernatorial candidate William Scranton, at which former President Eisenhower spoke.

Amid the event's fervor, Mahlon Haines reportedly stood on a chair, identified himself as the oldest Republican in the room, and announced a tripling of his admission contribution.

In October and November 1924, Mahlon Haines bought 318 adjoining acres of land which became known as Yorkshire Ranch.

Mahlon Haines built a two-room brick schoolhouse in the development in 1930, initially leased for $1 per year to the township's Independent School District.

When York Fairgrounds turned down his request to use their horse track, Mahlon Haines built a half-mile "Mahlon Haines Park" track in 1928 on a corner of his ranch near what is the intersection of Northern Way and Eastern Boulevard.

Mahlon Haines hosted a celebration in September 1938 to commemorate his 33 years in York.

In 1952, most members of the county horsemen's association were convinced to move to the York Fairgrounds for their major shows, and the last show at Mahlon Haines Park was in mid-August 1952.

Mahlon Haines sold the 55-acre Mahlon Haines Park to Eastland Realty Company in summer 1953, who developed the track area into a trailer park which remained into the 1960s.

Mahlon Haines owned 300 acres of fields and woodlands in eastern York County and beginning in 1941, he hosted a special "Mahlon Haines Safari" gathering of area Boy Scouts there about every five years to celebrate his birthday.

Mahlon Haines received the Silver Antelope Award from the scouts in 1944.

In late 1948, Mahlon Haines "took a very active part in the Chapter meeting of Agricultural alumni" at his Maryland alma mater and stated "he would personally pay the subscription cost for any agricultural alumnus who did not feel financially able" to request the alumni publication.

Mahlon Haines gave $2,500 to the Boy Scouts in exchange for the housing development being named after him.

Mahlon Haines gave substantial gifts to farmers of his land, boy and girl scouts, YMCA, YWCA, his church, and York Hospital.

In 1953, Mahlon Haines was featured in the short Paramount film The Spirit of Seventy, which promoted the value of physical exercise.

Mahlon Haines founded a "Three Quarter Century Baseball Team" for senior citizens in St Petersburg, Florida, near a winter home he had in Snell Isle.

Mahlon Haines attributed his own success at the game to staying fit and abstaining from alcohol and tobacco.

Mahlon Haines is known to have donated to leaders of the 1894 Coxey's Army protest march.

In January 1913, Mahlon Haines left on a primarily steamship trip to visit her there, going with Edward Schaszberger, the father-in-law of a friend in the Dempwolf family.

Mahlon Haines married June Brown Irwin of Union County on October 20,1909.

In July 1951, Mahlon Haines bought the former Kreutz Creek One-Room Schoolhouse with plans to use it as a public lecture hall dubbed the "Mahlon Haines School of Brains".

Mahlon Haines first met second wife Grace Marianne Churchill of London, England, while on a westward trans-Atlantic steamship cruise in summer 1955.

In 1961, Mahlon Haines placed his "Hermitage" home, across from the Shoe House, up for sale.

Mahlon Haines was never able to finish negotiating a land purchase for this project, however.

Mahlon Haines died on October 31,1962, while under intensive care after collapsing with a "heart ailment" a few days after undergoing "a successful operation".