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Correspondence and financial records of a Gilmer County businessman, gas drilling contractor, schoolteacher, and elementary school principal who was involved also with coal, timber, real estate, and water well businesses. The correspondence concerns Miller's business affairs; dealings with government agencies, such as the Federal Power Commission and the Small Business Administration; applications for teaching positions and graduate schools; tax problems; campaign for a seat on the school board; and dealings with West Virginia politicians. The financial material includes an account of the profits from gas wells. Other subjects include drilling costs and contracts; coal sales; Gilmer County schools and politics; business problems; land sales; road maintenance and construction; and the Consolidated Gas Company. Correspondents include Chauncey Browning, Jr., James Kee, Robert H. Mollohan, Arch Moore, and Hulett Smith.

Well leases and records, geologic reports, maps, printed material, photographs, and other papers of McGinnis, an oil and gas operator who owned the Tri-State Oil & Gas Co. of West Virginia, and who, after graduating from Marshall University in 1910, became a leading figure in the oil and gas business. Some of his poetry is included in the collection.

Papers of oil and gas driller and producer in Tyler County and other places. The collection consists of three diaries, 1 January 1894 through 31 December 1896; a typescript; and clippings. The diaries contain daily comment on wells drilled, including hours worked, depth of well, difficulties encountered, geologic strata, number of barrels of oil produced per hour or pressure of gas flow. Diaries include personal affairs, wages received and paid, oil sold, rent on leased property, oil market quotations, local affairs in Sistersville and Tyler County, voting in elections of 1894 and 1896, fire at the Big Moses Gas Well, drilling in the United States and Mexico, salt wells in West Virginia, biographical information on W.A. Furbee, and Drake and Burning Springs wells controversy.

Correspondence and other papers of Kemble White, one-time law partner of A.B. Fleming, specialist in oil and gas law, counsel for the West Virginia subsidiaries of Standard Oil (Hope Natural Gas, South Penn Oil, and Eureka Pipeline), charter member of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, veteran of the Spanish-American War, one-time president of the West Virginia Bar Association; and the West Virginia University Alumni Association. Additional items include: White's notebooks from language and accounting classes taken at the University; correspondence dealing with Mrs. White's gardening activities; drafts of White's proposals for constitutional revision in West Virginia; a Spanish-American War Muster-roll for Company M, 2nd West Virginia Volunteers; and two diaries (ca.1868). Subjects include: oil, land titles and leases; Fairmont Coal and Coke Company; Twin Mountain Orchards; Monongahela Valley Traction Company; Twin Mountain and Potomac Railroad; West Virginia political campaigns; and constitutional revision in West Virginia. Correspondents include: Luther Anderson, Carl G. Bachman, Fred Blue, John C. Bond, Linn Brannon, William E. Chilton, J.J. Cornwell, J.S. Darst, Wells Goodykoontz, Howard M. Gore, J.W. Harman, John H. Hatcher, Henry D. Hatfield, Frank C. Haymond, Rush D. Holt, Guy Kump, Howard B. Lee, M.M. Neely, Okey L. Patteson, William H. Sawyers, E.B. Stephenson, Robert Taft, and L. Judson Williams.

Records and motion pictures of the Owens, Libbey-Owens Gas Department of Charleston, West Virginia. Includes: "Handbook of Functions and Operations" (1952, 117 pages); Employee Awards Program (1948); Company History, 1915-61 (6 typescript pages); letter regarding sale of company (1970, 2 pages); and 12 reels of motion picture film. Motion picture film includes: Tulsa Oil Exposition (1959, 16 minutes); Misc. (undated) honorary dinner for Miss Weber (1953) and OLO office softball team (1938); service awards (1948-1950, 24 min.); service awards (1951-1955, 36 min.); service awards (1956-1960, 40 min.); service awards (1961-65, 40 minutes); service awards (1966-1967); OLO company operations (circa 1938-1967, 3 reels documenting various operations and installations); picnics and turkey shoots (1938-1948, 2 reels).

Papers of Rush Meadows, a Charleston, West Virginia, mining engineer and mine operator, containing correspondence, maps, reports, and photographs on companies involved in coal, oil and gas production in Appalachia, the Rocky Mountain states, and Latin America.

Correspondence, speeches, reminiscences, and newspaper clippings of a West Virginia newspaperman, state auditor, 1927-1929, and businessman. Subjects covered include the West Virginia gubernatorial campaign of 1924, Rush D. Holt's decision to run for the U.S. Senate in 1934, oil wildcatting ventures of Michael Benedum and J.C. Trees, the economy, oil imports, depletion allowances on the production of oil and gas, and labor legislation. Correspondents include Holmes Alexander, Robert C. Byrd, Phil Conley, John W. Davis, Ken Hechler, Rush D. Holt, Robert E. Maxwell, Jim Comstock, M.L. Benedum, Frank Lausche, William R. Laird, A.B. Koontz, William Proxmire, Jennings Randolph, James A. Farley, Michael A. Musmanno, Robert S. Kerr, and Douglas MacArthur.