The records of the Potlatch Lumber Company, Potlatch, Idaho, span the years 1901 to 1979, with the bulk of the material dated 1906-1950. Prior to receipt by the library, the Potlatch office manager removed all personnel records and other sensitive items. The remainder includes 41 c.f. of correspondence, alphabetical files containing both employee and company related materials, contracts and agreements for work to be done or equipment purchases, specifications and blueprints for plant machinery, annual and monthly financial reports, and property tax lists and receipts. In addition, there are 128 ledgers and journals, 24 maps of timber holdings, 285 blueprints of buildings and 355 photographs.

Due to the inter-relationship of the Potlatch organization there are also some records for the company mills at Palouse, Washington, and Elk River, Idaho, and the Washington, Idaho, and Montana Railway Company, the Potlatch Brick Company, and the Palouse Flour Mill. Since the town of Potlatch was a company town there are also records for the Townsite Company, the Potlatch Mercantile Company, and the company ranch.

As part of the Weyerhaeuser conglomerate the lumber company received annual reports for the Humbird and Standard Lumber Companies, and various circular letters and reports from the Weyerhaeuser Sales Company.

Other records include material from the Columbia/Appledale Land Company, 1910-1912, and the Northland Pine Company, 1901-1905, companies in which William Deary, the first general manager of the Potlatch Lumber Company, had ,an interest.

The University of Idaho Library also has other material relating to Potlatch Forests, Inc., which complements these records: George Frederick Jewett Papers (MG 43); Potlatch Forests, Inc., (Coeur d'Alene & Bonners Ferry operations) (MG 96); Potlatch Forests, Inc., Camp 6, Bovill (MG 52); and the records of the Washington, Idaho, and Montana Railway Company (MG 139).

In addition, the archives of the Laird Norton Company in Seattle, Washington, contains 16 cubic feet of Potlatch-related material from the years 1903-1955.