In the fall of 1886, the board hired Haynes as superintendent to manage the company and oversee the creation of wells and piping. The company was one of the first in the Trenton Field, and many of the others which soon followed modeled themselves on the Portland company. As a fuel and industry, natural gas was in its earliest stages. Haynes invented several devices that became important to the success of the industry. One of his first inventions was a device capable of measuring the amount of gas being pumped from wells. Haynes' reputation as an industry leader grew out of his operations at Portland and the "Kokomo Democrat" referred to him as "the only infallible authority on natural gas in eastern Indiana" in an 1889 article.