The material in this collection is composed of the correspondence and financial records of Walter Hoge and his son W. Smith Hoge. While some of these papers deal with political, religious, or family matters, the vast majority of the collection pertains to the real estate transactions generated by Hoge's company. Hoge seems to have been involved in all aspects of the real estate business, from buying and selling land, to lending money to purchasers, and even to handling the land titles for these sales.

It is unclear what the original order of this collection was, since it had been extensively reorganized by the previous owner. As a result, a default organization for the collection has been utilized. The papers are divided into two series: Walter Hoge's papers and W. Smith papers. Within each series the papers have been subsequently divided into financial, outgoing correspondence, and incoming correspondence. Financial and outgoing have been organized by date. Incoming is arranged alphabetically. Individual correspondents who wrote five or more letters to Hoge have been placed in separate folders. Walter Hoge's papers make up about two-thirds of the collection with incoming correspondence to either Walter or Smith composing the vast majority of the material.

Researchers should note that Special Collections has two reels of microfilm containing Walter Hoge's incoming and outgoing correspondence for 1910-1911. (The film was created by A.J. Simmonds in 1971, and is filed under call number: Utah Reel 60.) While the incoming correspondence appears to match the paper copies in this collection, the outgoing correspondence on the film seems to include letters for which we do not appear to have hard copies. How exactly this material came into the temporary possession of Special Collections, and why only this portion, remains unclear.

Special Collections has two reels of microfilm containing Walter Hoge's incoming and outgoing correspondence for 1910-1911. (Created by A. J. Simmonds in 1971, the microfilm is filed under call number: Utah Reel 60.) While the incoming correspondence appears to match the paper copies in this collection, the outgoing correspondence on the film seems to include letters for which we do not have hard copies.