Rare Books
Image not available
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Image not available
Manuscripts
The collection consists of the personal and business papers of Thomas Lord Kimball, primarily focused on his activities with the Union Pacific Railroad. The personal correspondence includes over 330 letters sent by Kimball to his wife Mary Porter Rogers Kimball between 1859 and 1893, a letter from Kimball to his daughter Frances (1870), and a letter to Mary Kimball from her brother I.S. Hodsdon (correspondence between Hodsdon and Thomas Kimball is included in the business correspondence). The personal papers also include diaries kept by Kimball between 1860 and 1899, diaries kept by Mary Kimball between 1890 and 1898, and a biographical sketch of Kimball. The railroad papers include business correspondence from a variety of correspondents including Frederick L. Ames, Sidney Dillon, I.S. Hodsdon, W.H. Holmes, Jay Gould, and E.P. Vining, as well as a few pieces of outgoing correspondence by Kimball. The financial and operation papers include Kimball's Union Pacific pocket notebooks dated 1891-1899, a small group of Jay Gould manuscripts (1877-1880), correspondence on the W.C. Thompson scandal (1872-1873), a letter appointing Kimball as travelling agent for the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. (1860), correspondence on the sale of a Unitarian Church in Omaha (1877-1880), production summaries for the Union Depot in Omaha (1879-1896), and miscellaneous railroad agreements, circulars, passes, receipts, promissory notes, financial statements, and stocks and bonds. The political papers consist of incoming correspondence, an agreement for Charles H. Brown to back the Union Pacific in pending legislation before Congress (1877), an agreement between Kimball and the National Union Publishing Co. (1877), a congressional voting record (1878), and a payroll. The mining papers include items related to the Newcastle Mining & Improvement Co. in Wyoming (1891-1894) and the Ella Mine in Idaho (1879-1880), as well as an analysis of coal on the Union Pacific Railroad line and a report on the coal business in Wyoming (1888). Also included is a box of newspaper clippings regarding Kimball's railroad activities from 1888-1889 (approx. 470 items).
mssKimball