
Body of Mr. Haynes Passes Through
We occasionally come across new details of long-ago events, which shed new light on the people involved. This was printed in a Spartanburg newspaper in that fateful February of 1917.
The body of R.R. Haynes, well known cotton mill man of Cliffside, NC who died in St. Petersburg, Florida, Tuesday, passed though Spartanburg this morning en route to Cliffside for the funeral and interment. He was an uncle of Dr. Baxter Haynes of this city.
R.R. Haynes was well known in Spartanburg, having many business friends and associates in the city, where he has often visited. As a business man; the deceased was one of the most prominent and successful in Western North Carolina. He was president and chief stockholder in the Cliffside Gingham Manufacturing plant, it being the largest concern of its kind in the South. He was a stockholder in and president of two banks, the Haynes Bank in Henrietta, NC and The Commercial Bank in Rutherfordton, NC. Besides this he was a director in the Charlotte National Bank. Mr. Haynes was also owner of the Cliffside railway, situated in Rutherford and Cleveland counties. As a taxpayer, he was probably the largest in Western North Carolina, paying taxes on 15,000 acres of land in Rutherford County alone.
This article first appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of the Cliffside Chimes, official newsletter of the Cliffside Historical Society.