Correspondence, circa 1860-circa 1930

Contains incoming and outgoing correspondence of the Shelby Iron Company. This series is divided into four subseries: Topical; Outgoing; Incoming; and General and Miscellaneous. Correspondence with a specific person or regarding a specific topic is placed in the Topical Series. The Outgoing and Incoming subseries follow a chronological arrangement and adhere to the original order of the records as Shelby Iron Company staff kept them. At other times Shelby staff kept both incoming and outgoing correspondence together in the same files; these are the materials in the General Subseries.

This enormous cache of letters relating to the company's day-to-day business--literally tens of thousands of notes and letters--is a prominent part of the collection.