Dates: 1911-1941
The papers of George R. Collins consist mainly of correspondence between Major Collins and Senator Harry S. Truman. Most of the correspondence concerns railroads, political issues, legislation, and Collins’s desire for an appointment to the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Size: Less than one-half of one linear foot (about 200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright was received with this collection. Documents created by U.S. government employees in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in any other documents in this collection presumably belongs to the creators of the documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Philip Nicolaus (2008) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.
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Major George R. Collins was born in Troy, New York around 1872. He moved to the Kansas City area around 1892, where he joined the Missouri National Guard and was a civil engineer. As an engineer in Kansas City he was involved with many projects including the construction of the Kansas City Union Station. As an officer with the National Guard he commanded a battery of which Harry S. Truman was the clerk. Following his service with the National Guard, Collins had his own engineering business in Kansas City, and during the time Truman was a U.S. Senator, corresponded with him concerning railroads in Missouri and the Midwest. He also sought Truman’s aid in obtaining government appointments. Collins was also president of the National Benevolent Society and secretary of the St. Louis-Kansas City Short Line Railroad Company. Collins died in January 1942 in Wadsworth, Kansas.
The papers of Major George R. Collins mostly contain correspondence between Collins and Senator Harry S. Truman. The correspondence mainly consists of Collins’s letters to Truman concerning politics in the state of Missouri and pending legislation, and letters Truman sent to Collins in reply. The collection also contains some newspaper clippings and other items.
Many of the letters concern the construction of the Short Line railroad in the St. Louis and St. Charles area of eastern Missouri. The collection also includes many letters which Collins wrote to Truman in an effort to obtain governmental appointment to the Interstate Commerce Commission or to other federal jobs. The earliest document in the collection is a 1911 letter from Truman thanking Collins for his expression of concern after Truman was injured by a recalcitrant calf on the family farm.
These papers were originally opened for research as part of the Miscellaneous Historical Documents Collection (MHDC 403).
More information concerning George R. Collins can be found in the Harry S. Truman Papers: Papers as U.S. Senator and Vice President, and in the H. H. Halvorson Papers.
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Container Nos. |
Series |
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1 |
CORRESPONDENCE FILE, 1911-1941 Correspondence, newspaper clippings, and legislation. Arranged chronologically. |
CORRESPONDENCE FILE, 1911-1941
Box 1
- 1911-1938
- 1939-1941