Cowboy Hall of Fame

to be inducted March 14th in a Cowboy Festival in Kamloops

Working Cowboy

Valentine Haynes was the first white child born in Osoyoos, on December 21, 1875, the eldest of 6 children born to  Judge J. Haynes and his wife Emily.  Judge Haynes arrived from Ireland in 1853 and joined the newly formed BC Police force.  He was the first Collector of Customs at Osoyoos in 1861.  Val became a cowboy at the early age of 8 years old, trailing  a herd to Alberta and returning home.  In 1888 Val and the Judge were on the Dewdney Trail, in Princeton when the Judge  died.   Mrs. Haynes moved the family to England in 1890, Val returned to BC in 1893.  He went to work for Thomas Ellis  who had acquired the vast Haynes estates.  When the Shatford Bros bought out the Ellis holdings in 1905, Val was made  foreman until the Shatfords sold in 1919.  During this time he bought the Hester Creek Ranch (1906), and pieces of the  former Haynes estates;  much of Kruger Mtn, Vaseaux (Swan) Lake (1935). He was a keen judge of horses and cattle and was  able to carry on as a successful stockman and cattleman in a big way despite the encroachment of the modern era.  In  appearance, he was every inch a cowboy with his large, flat-brimmed