Haas continued to live along the northern coast of California through the 1920s, working at redwood tree reforestation nurseries after his graduation from high school in 1924. Around the same time, he also read Frederick O'Brien's White Shadows in the South Seas, which fired his romantic imagination. Over the years, according to [corrected: Don] Herron, Haas would go on to read over 1,000 books on the South Pacific. It seems safe to assume that Haas also started reading Weird Tales in these years. The magazine started publication in 1923.
[Update: According to Don Herron--I missed this sentence before--Haas did indeed start buying Weird Tales from the beginning.
[Update: According to Don Herron--I missed this sentence before--Haas did indeed start buying Weird Tales from the beginning.