This collection, purchased from Mr. E. W. Nolan in 1964 and 1965 (also gift Dec. 1964), contains correspondence relating to the operation of the Northern Pacific Railroad's Land Department, Pacific Division, mainly concerning the sale of the railroad's lands in Oregon and Washington. Reflected are the company's policies in regard to timber, minerals, coal, agriculture, sheep-raising and irrigation. There is also a group of letters from the German Consul in San Francisco to Paul Schulze, one of the land agents for the company, pertaining to the search for German nationals believed to be in Oregon or Washington, and in addition, two volumes (Boxes 17-18) of letters to Paul Schulze marked Private Business.
There are 36 volumes of outgoing letters, chiefly letterpress copies, 8 volumes of records from the station at Naches, Washington, 4 volumes of vouchers, and another volume of accounts. Incoming letters for the most part had been pasted into volumes, apparently arranged in order of receipt, numbered and roughly indexed. In order to protect the manuscripts, the letters were removed from the volumes and placed in folders, retaining the original order, each folder being numbered, and the index for each volume placed in a separate folder at the beginning of the box. Titles formerly on the spines of the volumes have been retained - i.e. Pacific Division. M2 , etc., as labels on the boxes and folders. The later records (Boxes 19-41) were received loose, some of them formerly pasted in volumes, in no apparent order. These letters have been arranged alphabetically, with single items in miscellanies.
A brief description of contents of the boxes and volumes follows, with a partial list of correspondents appended at end.