The Alvah and Mary Shelden Collection contains their 1879 to 1885 journal of activities as residents of El Dorado, Kansas, as well as autobiographical and biographical accounts of their lives as early settlers and teachers in Butler County, Kansas. A typescript of their journal is included.

The G.W. Fry Collection contains the 1885 to 1896 correspondence of Ohio resident George W. Fry regarding his Butler County, Kansas landholdings at El Dorado. Fry's letters and financial records describe improvements made on his Butler County lands, his pursuit of railway access and a depot, successes and failures in crop production, and his hardships in defense of lawsuits by a tenant.

In this undated ledger is a handwritten mailing list produced by Hale Bros. Druggists of El Dorado, Kansas. The list contains personal names of Butler County, Kansas residents, arranged alphabetically by surname, and names the community in which each person resides.