Family papers collected and collated by River Falls businessman and historian Bruce Earl Foster (1932-2007), great-grandson of early River Falls resident Judge Joel Foster.
Foster was born September 6, 1932 in River Falls, Wisconsin, to Letha (nee Chinnock) and Earl Hunter Foster. The last of three children, Bruce graduated from River Falls High School in 1954 and obtained a bachelors degree in history from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in 1958.
Foster worked as a professional Scout Leader for the Boy Scouts, sold life insurance for Metropolitan Life, drove a school bus, and operated an animal shelter for Pierce and St. Croix counties, which he later expanded to include grooming services. In his personal life, Foster was an avid fisherman, and involved in numerous social organizations in Pierce County throughout his life. He married Joy Rasmussen in 1961 and they had two children, Judie (1962-) and Andrew "Andy" (1968-).

Files are partial reproductions of business directories from R. L. Polk's Wisconsin gazetteer, including sections on Ellsworth (1877-1928); Pierce County (1922); and River Falls (1877-1928) created by Dan Geister in his research regarding communities in Pierce County, Wisconsin.

Opera Hotel register (1887-1901, 1941) includes names, addresses (generally limited to city if any), date/time, rooms rented, and a notes field. Since many of the guests were in the entertainment industry, many entries include creatively devised advertisements for the performances or other additional information on the group and type of entertainment provided. A note, dated 1941, appears to have been added by a later owner of the register. According to the River Falls Journal, the register was in the possession of W. A. Freeman when the fire that burned the building formerly housing the Opera Hotel, burned in 1921.

Rolls show ownership and description of taxable lands, assessed valuation of each parcel, taxes due, and record of payment of taxes. Total valuation, taxes due, and taxes paid are shown for personal property. For the years 1854-all tax rolls were retained; after rolls were retained for each year for the city of River Falls and generally for the decennial years for all other local units; for the years 1975-1995 only tax rolls for every fifth year have been retained. Assessment rolls are present for various units of local government for scattered years.

Minute books recording board of directors and stockholders meetings, including annual financial reports and an audit report.

The Sanborn Co. was founded in 1867 by D.A. Sanborn, to draw maps of the downtown districts of cities across the U.S. These maps could then be consulted by insurance companies if a building burned to research different characteristics about the business and the physical structure. The company stopped making the fire insurance maps in 1961, due to other sources being used to obtain the needed information. Today, they serve as a wonderful resource for tracing the growth of cities and tracking where businesses were located decades ago. We have these maps on microfilm for the entire state of Wisconsin. We also have copies of the actual maps in paper format for cities in our four-county area. The dates range from approximately the 1880s to the 1920s for our area. The maps were not issued regularly, so do not expect any pattern as to when the maps came out for various cities.