The West Cache papers were held in two black tin storage boxes measuring 17 x 40.5 x 30 cm. The second box was shared with material from the American Falls Canal Company. Typical of the methods of record storage at the turn of the century most of the papers and correspondence had been stored in legal sized brown envelopes some stuffed past the tearing point. Many of these envelopes had short notes written in pen concerning contents and dates. A portion of the papers had been rolled up tightly and fastened with rubber bands. These papers at time of discovery were still rolled up although many of the rubber bands had deteriorated leaving black streaks and residue on the paper. One of the tin boxes had suffered the introduction of water some years ago causing the documents near the bottom to rusts rot and mold.

The processing of these papers was begun by some of the students in professor A.J. Simmonds Archives Management class. They were able to remove most of the contents from the tin boxes and envelopes and do a preliminary breakdown of the materials. The task confronting me when I began was that of picking up where they left off. The only original order the collection had had at time of discovery was the segregation of materials in envelopes. Since the original order had been disturbed by the archives class, and since such an order, if maintained, would have limited patron accessibility to the materials, it was decided to separate all of the materials and either place them in like groups, as with deeds and stockholder meeting minutes, or by date as with the correspondence and cancelled checks.

Special care was taken to make sure the papers were clean and in good condition Tears were repaired with Archival Tape and papers suffering deterioration due to high acid content were treated using WEI TO, a de-acidifying agent. Documents with mold were brushed clean A few papers had rotted past the point that they could be salvaged. All papers have been placed in acid-free Folders and stored in acid-free Hollinger boxes.