Description
The collection is made up of approximately fifty percent loose material and fifty percent bound volumes (percentage estimated
in shelf space). The loose material consists of documents, both routine business and legal, correspondence, reports, minutes,
various types of financial business, and maps and blueprints. Many of the subsidiary companies represented in these papers
are not present in the series of bound material, and this loose material is dated, on an average, earlier than the volumes.
The Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railway Company, which does not appear in the bound material, is involved in much of
the earlier, loose material, and of particular interest are the business papers of the various railroad lines which consolidated
to form this line. They consist of agreements and correspondence in particular, which presents a rather complete picture of
the growth of railroads late in the nineteenth century. A railroad in Guatemala also illustrates an interesting aspect of
the company's activity.
Background
The Pacific Improvement Company was a large holding company in California, formed during the days of C.P. Huntington, Leland
Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. These men were the early controlling stockholders and directors of the company,
although in this collection there is no precise indication as to the exact date of its incorporation. Two cash books, contained
in the first box of the collection, are dated as early as 1869, but this is the single instance of a date this early. The
greatest bulk of the collection is dated between 1883 and 1927, with scattered exceptions in the 1870's and as late as 1931.
Restrictions
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.