Papers of Blanding, a St. Croix Falls, Wis., businessman, land speculator, and local politician. Blanding's business and political correspondence, 1847-1901, financial papers, and land records comprise the bulk of the collection. ?b Political letters relate mainly to local village and county offices held by Blanding and to his unsuccessful campaign for the state senate in 1894.
?b Among other materials in the collection are a few letters and records relating to transportation and logging on the St. Croix River; plat maps of surveyed lands around the St. Croix Valley; minutes of the St. Croix Literary Association, 1870-71; a few papers pertaining to the founding and development of the Polk County Agricultural Society, 1886-1901; manuscript articles on the temperance movement and on Indian and white traditions in the St. Croix region; genealogical data; and other family correspondence, 1901-1958.