The William M. Blanding Papers, 1847-1958, deal with Blending as a St. Croix Falls businessman, land speculator, and politician. The collection includes correspondence, 1847-1958, financial and land records, speeches, articles, memos, genealogical data, and other materials relating to St. Croix Falls.
Included in the collection is correspondence, contracts, financial records and data, mortgages, land indentures, deeds, receipts, and other materials relative to his land speculations in Wisconsin and Minnesota, 1865-1901. There is also scattered correspondence, circa 1875-circa 1900, relative to transportation and logging on the St. Croix River.
There is likewise correspondence, pamphlets, and statistical data relative to his campaign for the Wisconsin State Senate in 1894, and to political conditions and developments in Wisconsin during the years 1880-1900. The collection also contains several manuscript articles on the subject of temperance and on the traditions of the Whites and Indians in the St. Croix region.
There are 77 miscellaneous account books, record books, and check and receipt books. Besides these there are several volumes, as listed, including the minutes, 1886, of a preliminary meeting called for the purpose of organizing the Polk County Agricultural Society; also scattered correspondence and miscellaneous papers relating to this organization, 1881-1901.
Worth special mention are the several plat maps of surveyed lands in and around the St. Croix Valley area.
