Materials created and/or used by Richard C. Overton as historian of the CB&Q to document the history of the railroad and of related railroads. Includes historical files, with original material and copies, on various topics (originally stored in manila mailing envelopes); office files for basic administration, reflecting both the time he spent as an employee of the CB&Q and the time he spent as a professor of business history; research files, which are topical files with extensive notes, footnotes, and copies of original material; and works, including both the long (unpublished) and the short (published) drafts of his book Burlington Route, printed by the University of Nebraska Press in 1965. (Interestingly, the unpublished, long version of the book includes a chapter on the CB&Q 1888 Strike, which does not appear in the published version.) Office files include correspondence relating to the deposit of the collection at the Newberry Library. Research materials and Works also include information about CB&Q president Ralph Budd, with whom Overton worked closely. Those were originally kept in 3-ring binders, and early (substantially redundant) copies of working drafts were deaccessioned.

Includes indexes to materials in other Record Groups, and a substantial number of typescripts of letters written by C.E. Perkins (formerly known in the 1949 printed guide as C-O 1 P4.6) See also CB&Q A-5-7, Audio Recordings, for recordings of Overton’s, and his interviews with Budd.